A Timeless Hawk
by King-of-Horror
Summary: A story revolving around the Four Horsemen and an unlikely hero. A girls journey begins with the death of her sister in the year 1871, and a premonition of the apocalypse to come in 2010. Equipped with supernatural abilities passed down from her father, and the loyalty of a close friend (the Angel Gabriel) the girl sets forth on a journey through time to save the world she loves.
1. The Holt Sisters

A/N: Alright! This is what I like to think of as a "unique" story. Though it may not seem like it at first, the Winchesters will tie into the story, though not in the way you may think (but much later on!).

Gabriel and the Four Horsemen play huge roles in this story, and along the way, a bunch of other characters who we should have seen more of in the show will make appearances!

This fic is broken up into "Notes" and "Chapters". A Note is like a prologue for the chapter that follows it, and every note and chapter have a specific date and time that help to organize the story.

P.s This does get gory at times as it is sort of a horror story (like supernatural should be!), and strong language will be used later on. Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around for further chapters!

Good luck!

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**Other P.s: I edited some parts of the chapters from 1-3 just to smooth over awkward writing and make the story line clearer. (As of May 25th. 2014)**

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**Note #1:** The Holt Sisters

**Date:** April 15th, 1871

**Location:** Munich, Germany

**Start Time:** 2:04 PM

* * *

Rain fell heavy from the grey sky above them, and through its downpour one could not see a foot ahead of themselves. The smell of wet dog was thick in the air as a pair of young girls, known to be blood sisters, ran from a burning building.

"Keep going!" the eldest yelled through the rain. "We can't go back!"

Though her feet ached horribly, the youngest continued to run as fast as she could. Tears pooled in her eyes as she coughed into the sleeve of her oversized fur coat. She only wanted to stop, to relieve the pain in her stomach, and to bring their home back, but her elder sister kept running, so she did as well.

Screams sounded around them as fire spread through the rain and latched onto nearby houses. The pale-faced girls could only watch in horror as house after house was swallowed by flames, and the heat could be felt through the storm around them.

The smaller girl stopped for a moment to rest, but her older sister was there in an instant to keep her moving.

"Don't stop!" she yelled. The smaller girl could only nod weakly as her knees continued to buckle beneath her. Nonetheless she ran as her sister told her to.

An explosion behind the girls sent heat racing up their backs and made the youngest fall forward. A fresh patch of angry red scrapes now littered her fragile shins, and her older sister was by her side once again. Quickly grabbing her sister's hand, the two ran to the side of a crumbling post office in order to hide.

Tears ran down the younger girls face, and neither her or her older sister could tell if they were from pain or mental anguish. To make matters worse, the wall where the two hid provided little cover from the rain.

Today was a day of loss, and the eldest sister turned to face the only sibling she had left. Cupping the little girls bruised face in her hands, she tried to talk some courage into her.

"What is your name?" she shouted over the thundering of the rain.

The smaller girl looked down. A cold fear raced through her body, and that _smell_ of dog and decay kept getting closer. Could her older sister really not smell it?

"Please Maria. We must go!" she shouted back desperately.

"Look me in the eyes! What. Is your name?" the older girl insisted.

"Emma..." she replied in a whisper.

"Emma what?" Maria questioned almost angrily.

"Emma Holt!" the little girl yelled.

"Right! And do you know what that means?" Maria asked as she squeezed her little sister's bright red cheeks.

The smaller girl shook her head. "No! That doesn't matter we need to-"

"It means that you're a Holt silly. It means you're strong… It means _we _are strong…. Remember what mother said before she-" Maria's breath caught in her throat as she trailed off.

Mother was dead, and they would be too unless she did something. She released her younger sisters grim face from her hands and placed her palms on Emma's shoulders instead. Even then, she could sense that Emma understood hope was lost.

"Its just you and me from now on okay? I'm your big sister and I am going to keep you safe. Just like that time I kept those bees from stinging you. Remember?" Maria spoke softly, though she couldn't keep the authoritative tone out of her voice.

The last thing she wanted was to scare her sister further, but with the _dogs_ getting closer, bravery could be the only thing to save her younger sisters life. Emma sniffled silently before opening her mouth to respond.

"But you're only seven! And we both got stung," she retorted as a long suppressed sob began to wrack her body.

"Yeah well you're six! I'm older and that means I'm the boss so…" Maria's voice trailed off as sounds of booming footsteps resonated nearby.

The Holt sisters froze, and felt their bodies succumb to the numb horror that began to creep up their spines. Sheer terror overcame their every thought and emotion, and as the two came face to face with the mangled and torn head of a hellhound, no words could describe the nearly _painful_ fear that now coursed through them in that moment.

Seeing a hellhound was nothing like either of them had expected. The burns and scars that littered its face seemed fresh, and puss seeped from a particular cut by its mouth - or perhaps the cut _was_ a mouth. But the smell… Rotting carcasses and raw sewage wafted closer as they stood frozen. It felt as though hours were passing in seconds, and in all that time, the tar black pits at the front of the hellhounds skull still watched them hungrily.

Hope was but a distant memory now. Hope, was the thing that gave someone a fighting chance, but what chance do children have against such beasts? Emma was scared into a stiff non-moving stupor, but then, Maria jolted forward towards the hound.

The jaws of the beast opened fast, but before they could snap down around Maria's body, a bright flash blinded them.

Thunder had struck the ground at their feet, and exploded upward. The youngest Emma was sent flying into a building not far from where her and her sister were standing with the hellhound. Hazy pulses of pain ran through her skull as she struggled to open her eyes, and nothing in her body seemed to be working the way it should.

"Maria!" she cried as she forced herself to stand. "Maria!"

There was no response, but to her surprise, the rain seemed to have slowed its decent. The smell of fear mixed with wet dog had also left, but an ominous feeling quickly crushed the relief that the disappearing hound had brought her.

A sudden cutting feeling in Emma's gut made her fall to her knees, and her thin stockings tore against the broken glass and rubble that littered the ground around her. She opened her mouth to scream, to cry, to do anything, but nothing would come out. What was that _feeling _in her body?

She felt empty inside. It was as if a part of her had been _cut out_ and peeled away, leaving nothing but the bare and shaking shell of a rain-soaked girl in its wake.

A realization made her gasp as she turned her head to look behind her.

Through the pain and cold, the only thing she could focus on was the body of a small girl a small bit away from her.

"Maria?" she whimpered as she edged herself closer. Through the rain the body was a grey blur, but Emma could smell the fading scent of her older sister. She knew now that _that _was the cutting feeling in her center. Maria had died.

Suddenly, the stench of hellhounds rushed back ten times stronger than before. The angry snarls of the wild beasts cut through the air so loudly it made Emma sick to her stomach.

The little girl now panicked as she crawled franticly on her stomach over jagged brick and glass to get to her sisters unconscious body.

"Maria please. We have to go," she cried.

A pool of blood now formed a wide circle around her sisters body, and its edges slid under Emma's bruised and cut hands. As her hazy vision began to clear, the little girl soon realized that her sister certainly was not going to be okay. She was torn apart.

Her left leg was gone, and what remained of her sisters left arm was badly broken. Her fingers were twisted at odd angles, and most of the skin on her forearms had burned away in the thunder. Though it looked like she was sleeping, Emma had seen that peaceful look before. Her sister was dead, and the sight of her lifeless eyes made vomit rise into her sore throat.

She turned away from her older sister as she tried not to throw up. With the shock of seeing her protector's bloodied body now ebbing away, confusion quickly took its place as she struggled to remember what had happened.

"Maria," she whimpered, and she closed her eyes. Her small hands balling into fists as she set her lips into a firm straight line. She was too afraid to leave her sisters side, but if she didn't, then maybe she too would be torn apart by thunder.

Her feet weren't working the way she wanted them too, but the decision to move came easily once the smell of dog came rushing over her.

She turned, and with each agonizing step, the dogs came closer. Her growing panic made a painful lump of fear grow in her chest, and the intense feeling of falling suddenly swarmed her senses.

"_I'm scared. Maria please. I'm so scared,"_ she thought to herself as she struggled to fill her lungs with air. Being only six years old, she had already seen the dead bodies of the two people she loved most, and the taste of her own blood left her feeling sick as a cut above her eye continued to bleed.

The girl fell to her knees once more with a painful crack against the uneven cobblestone, and with her small hands now slick with blood, she turned slowly.

But not to see the hellhounds that where going to rip her apart, but to see her sister's oddly peaceful face just once more before she… died.

Surprise shook her as her eyes fell on the spot where her sister lay dead.

Her sister's body was gone… And in its place now stood a man.

"No" She whispered in disbelief. Tears sprang back into her eyes as she desperately tried to appear strong as Maria instructed only moments ago.

The man smiled, fully displaying his blackened teeth and red stained tongue. He was rough looking, and his pale white skin practically shone when compared to the bright red cloak he wore. Hideous scars formed odd patterns across his face, and the delicate black of his hair contrasted his harsh features. But above all else, the most noticeable of the man's features were his piercing green eyes.

Then she saw what was standing on either side of him. A crimson horse with several black eyes and a mane of fire stood to his right, and to the left, a hellhound.

All the breath inside of the small child left her once again. She was so young, how could she outrun it? How could she fight it? All the blood in her body felt frozen, but for some reason, it kept pouring itself all over her coat from the cut over her eye.

Through all of the pain racing through her body, Emma still only cared about one thing. What had happened to her sister's body? Maybe the dark haired man took it… Well he couldn't take it… She would have to be brave, just like Maria was. She would have to fight back no matter how slim the chances of survival were. She new, that from now on, she would be the only one to protect herself from bees.

Emma took a deep and stabilizing breath before getting into a running position. She could practically hear her sister chiding her for not running away, but she was to angry to do as her inner voice said. Allowing herself to cry harder than she had ever cried before, the girl took a running start at the red man.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she screamed and forced her weak legs to move. She continued to run, and run, and run, but for some reason, it felt as though she where running through thick and heavy mud. As her pace slowed, she noticed something else that was out of place. The sound of rain and thunder… it had stopped.

Emma opened her eyes and stopped running. She gasped as she looked around her to find that every drop of rain she could see had suddenly frozen in mid air. They looked crystal clear as they hung motionless all around her. She felt weightless as she lifted her head to look at the red-cloaked man in front of her. She found, to her delight, that he was frozen as well.

Sparing a moment to look around, she found that the people had stopped screaming, smoke had stopped rising, and the fire stopped dancing with the rain. There was no sounds. No scents. No anything. It was as if everything except herself were frozen in time.

The little girl turned her attention back to the red man, his twisted smile still hung awkwardly on his pale and scarred face.

"Please," she said quietly as she stared blankly into his cold green eyes.

"Please, we only-" her words were cut short by a sudden sharp pain in her left eye. Cupping a hand over half of her face, she fell to the ground in agony.

"_I hate this. It hurts. This isn't fair,"_ she thought to herself as she stopped struggling against the overwhelming pain.

She turned over from her side in order to lie on her back. Gravel now dug into her shoulder blades, but at this point, she didn't care. For some reason, it felt as though she had all the time in the world to just lay there in the vacuum of silence.

Suddenly, a deep whooshing noise shocked her out of her agonizingly peaceful state, and she fell into what felt like a deep puddle of water.

Gasping for air, the girl kicked for the surface of what she now knew to be a lake. The sound of men and woman chatting loudly flooded her senses, and the smell of freshly baked bread and salted meats overwhelmed her nose.

"H-help!" she screamed. She couldn't swim, and the sudden switch of scenery left her feeling light headed and her bones aching. Someone was suddenly at her side in the water, then another, and then yet another person joined in on the effort to hoist her up and out of the water.

Where had she just gone? How did she even get there? Was this part of the abilities her mother was talking about? No matter what the answer was, Emma Holt now knew the full extent of her _gifts_.

At the age of six, she had successfully escaped War and his hellhounds. She had seen her sister die, and she promised to become the undoing of the Four Horsemen her mother had talked about.

The little girl frowned faintly at the silent promise she made to herself. Though she was still a child, she new that she could surpass her sister's strength, and live up to her mother's kindness.

As she drifted out of consciousness in the arms of a stranger, Emma thought back to something her sister had once told her.

"Don't be sad if someone leaves you," she had said with a foolish frown etched into her face. "You'll look like a baby, and like mother says, you will see them again."

* * *

Time flowed normally once more on the street where Emma once lay. The suspended rain now poured over the blood stained streets, washing away any trace of the Holt sisters fight for survival.

To War, the child he was pursuing had simply vanished in mid stride. He frowned deeply at the sudden turn of events.

"Dumme kleine rote mädchen," he said with a light chuckle. The hellhound at his side snarled as it wildly searched the air for any trace of Emma's scent, but to no avail.

"Silly silly silly little red girl, you'll join your sister soon."


	2. The Messenger

A/N: Alright... In this chapter we find out a little bit more about Emma. She meets someone she won't soon forget, and I just want to say that over the next three chapters, everything about her will be revealed (oops... spoiler? nah whatever.) But just some context! Its been about forty-three years since her sister died, and Emma's abilities have grown more than she could ever imagine. This chapter is like an introduction to the two main characters of this story, Emma and Gabriel.

But without further delay...

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**The Timeless** and: The Messenger

**Date:** September 13th, 1914

**Location:** New York, America

**Start Time:** 12:00 PM

* * *

_The blade clanged against the hardwood floor as Emma hit the ground. She struggled to breath as she looked up at the reaper. _

_A hellhound stood close behind, and it was then that her worst fear was realized. _

_Quickly looking at the analog clock on the wall beside her, she memorized the time. It read 2:50pm.  
_

"_Don't worry child, I'll make this quick" the reaper said without a hint of emotion in it's voice. _

_Emma wiped blood from the side of her mouth, and closed her eyes as she focused with all her might on tuning out the world around her. _

"_Say goodbye to the Robinsons," the reaper said as he raised the knife high into the air. _

_Warm blood sprayed against Emma's face as she continued to focus as hard as she could on turning back time. _

_This attempt was a failure._

_She would have to start over._

* * *

Emma gasped loudly as she found herself standing in front of her bathroom mirror. She stood naked as she frantically looked around the room. A small faded gray clock sat beside the bathtub to her right; it read 12:00 PM. Taking slow and panicked breaths, she tried to force herself to calm down.

Her original fear quickly turned to anger as she punched the mirror in front of her. It shattered as pieces of glass fell to the ground around her feet. Blood dripped from her already hurting knuckles, and with a grunt, she waved her hand over the broken frame of the mirror. It's pieces slid backward through the air and sealed back to their original positions as she frowned at the red marks on her hands.

Adrenaline pumped through her body as it always did when a hellhound was near, but the danger was over, or at least it was for the next few hours.

Looking down at her bathroom sink, she found a bright red apple sitting elegantly beside a pack of Lucky Strike Cigarettes.

God… She was sick of seeing those things again and again. They only reminded her of her previous failures. They only reminded her that she had gone back in time.

"_Noon already,_" she thought to herself as she idly took a bite of the apple. Juice ran down her chin as she looked up from the sink and into her freshly unbroken mirror.

A girl with pale skin and far too much blonde hair stared back at her. Bare shoulders looked boney as her eyes traveled further down her own body. A new scar was forming on her stomach, and bruises around her wrists made her wince as she remembered how they had gotten there.

"_Just relax Emma… You did all you could,"_ she thought as she took in the grim picture that was herself.

She continued to look herself up and down as she realized just how tired she was. Her hair swayed gently in a cool breeze from an open window behind her as she scratched at scabs lacing their way across her elbows, and the red and purple blotches that stained her knuckles ached as she moved to smooth her hair out of her face.

This was her _third_ try at reliving the past three hours, and she still hadn't successfully saved that family. A lump of fear grew in her stomach as she forced herself to calm down. Taking slow and deep breaths, the girl managed to stop herself from screaming as she turned away from her mirror and walked into her bedroom.

* * *

Thank god the electricity was back on. It had been a few days since she had any, and cold showers were really losing their appeal. Allowing herself to collapse onto her bed, she reached out with her mind and flung open her wardrobe doors.

She had to do things right this time. She never imagined that the affects of time travel would be this taxing on her body, but forcing back the hands of something so infinite can do that to a person.

With a defeated sigh she closed her eyes and found a pair of light coloured stockings in the bottom drawer.

Slipping into her usual light clothing, she fluffed out whatever wrinkles remained in her dress as it flowed down to cover half of her shins. A small smile grew on her face at the smell of fresh soap and lavender as she twirled a little just to watch her dress float around her.

She took one quick look around her apartment before she headed out, just in case she had forgotten something. And of course, she found her white satin handbag sitting on her kitchen table. As she huffed in annoyance at her display of complete and utter foolishness, the girl let herself smile as she realized that her, the psychic, always seemed to forget her handbag before going out.

Humming one of her favorite songs, Ave Maria, she took one last look in her bathroom mirror. As she swept a large portion of her hair up and over her shoulders, she couldn't help but feel hurt as she remembered how her sister used to play with it on cool afternoons like this.

"_Christ Emma," s_he thought to herself as she bit her lip. "_It's been forty-three years just drop it_."

With a final glance at her face, making sure no hair was out of line, she turned from the mirror and looked around her living space once more for good measure.

It hadn't been long since she moved in, and the only possessions she had in the large apartment was a king sized bed, about a dozen clocks scattered around each room, and an oak wardrobe filled with various dresses. She didn't have much, but she never needed many things anyway. With reapers constantly searching for her, along with War and his beasts always close behind, she never stayed somewhere more than a few months.

Taking a deep and stabilizing breath, she let herself loosen up as she turned away from the chipped walls of her apartment, and headed for the door.

* * *

Deciding to pull her hair into a tight braid, she made her way through the apartment building.

Emma couldn't help but think about how exhausted she was as she ran out of breath from simply walking down the stairs. But as usual, people needed her more than she needed rest. This would be the fourth case she would take on this week, and with the number of reapers in the city increasing each day, she feared for the worst. Rumours of a great war to end all wars were everywhere, but no matter the evidence presented to her, she refused to believe it. How could humans be so flawed? She never understood.

Though she looked to be about eighteen years old, Emma turned forty-nine in April, but thanks to her _father_, time didn't necessarily have the same affect on her as it did on other humans.

She always got mixed looks when leaving her apartment, but she knew better than to think anything of it. It was astonishing for folks to see a _young girl_ such as herself living alone with no man to keep her company, but she didn't mind. As long as no one asked questions, she didn't have a problem.

"_Oh boy, here we go,"_ she thought to herself as she walked past a group of boys (though she liked to call them _monkeys _due to the mental resemblance). One of them spotted her instantly, and the rest of their eyes flashed upwards as she walked by.

She groaned inwardly as she held her head high. She slowed her pace as she spared them all a glance. Gosh, one of them looked like he was drooling!

She giggled innocently as she winked at the youngest looking boy. He smiled widely in response.

Outwardly, she always seemed flirty and wild to them. A carnivores animal that could be tamed with a gentle kiss or a firm command, but they knew she was different. They knew not to talk to her. They may not understand how they knew, but they undisputedly, irrefutably, understood that she was different, and not to be touched.

Good. This was how she liked it. a look in her eyes kept them away as she continued walking past them with a smile. She would never admit it, but she hated humans.

After all that happens to them, all they go through, they never learn. Of course, she couldn't forget the fact that she herself was part human, but if she could, she would rip that part out.

"_Men are so simple,_" she thought to herself as she left the boys behind. Her innocent smile falling back into its usual scowl as she checked the time once more.

Reminding herself that today's journey to the _outside world_ was not one of leisure, the blonde haired girl decided to let go of her current emotions, and focus on the task at hand.

Saving the Robinson family was proving to be far more difficult than she had expected. Having to keep the reapers at bay as she simultaneously kept track of the entire family was far to hard for her alone. Maybe she should have let their son die instead of go through all this mess over and over again with reapers trying to 'bring order back to the universe by taking his soul'.

All her cases started the same. She would save someone from dying, reapers would come to collect the soul anyway, and she would kill the reapers. It was an exhausting process, and she honestly never knew why she even started saving these human's lives anyway. She knew that the smart thing to do was to let them die at their natural fate-chosen time, but something within her hated seeing people go when she had the power to stop it. And fuck, did she hate that part of herself.

* * *

It was a dreadful morning on the bustling streets of New York City, and it grew less and less appealing the more she re-lived it. As Emma peered through the windows of her apartment buildings front hall, Time Square seemed to glisten in the soft mist that had hung itself over the unusually dry city.

Waves of people and their automobiles moved in ripples just beyond the front doors, and the smell of gasoline quickly followed. Paper boys screamed out of the impending war and the need to act quickly. Flyers flew through the air spreading word of the 'Austrian Government' and its crimes. To much was happening to fast, and Emma only wanted for the world to stop for at least a few seconds. Maybe those few seconds could lead her to a solution to the mayhem. Taking a deep breath in she let the thoughts go as she walked towards the only person she had ever talked to for the past month.

"Morning Marge. How are you this fine morning?" Emma asked politely as she passed the front desk of her apartment building.

Marge was the sweetest woman she had ever met, and perhaps the only human to ever win her over. She was also part of the reason why Emma had relived the last three hours over and over again. At precisely three pm, Marge would die of a stroke, and Emma wanted to be with her when it happened.

"Oh just swell Alice!" the woman replied with a wrinkled smile. Emma almost faltered midway through her cheery greeting.

"_Alice? Oh right… Now I remember,_" She thought to herself as she continued to smile at Marge. Alice had been her alias for the past month since she took up residence in the city of dreams. She needed to leave Emma behind, since the smallest trace of her past could lead any number of beasts to her.

"That's very nice Marge, I'll be out for a while, so I wont be seeing you till about three in the afternoon alright?" Emma said over her shoulder as she made her way to the front of the building.

Marge saw her as a close friend, even though they had only known each other for a short time. She so loved to treat Emma, along with most girls _her age_ in the building as though they were one of her own children.

"_Maybe it's because she could never have her own…"_ Emma thought idly as she took her final steps past the thick doors of her building and into the outside world.

She pushed the thoughts of Marge out of her head as she stood once more admiring the bleak grey sky overhead.

Armed with her pale white handbag slung over her shoulder, she crossed the street as she effectively maneuvered between automobiles and people alike. Oh boy, sometimes those metal cans moved so fast. It was odd for her to remember how just forty years ago a short carriage ride could send her stomach reeling. She hadn't even ridden in a one of those _metal __things_ till she was thirty!

"_Oh how times have changed… Next thing you know they'll have a well functioning government," s_he thought to herself.

She hopped with two feet up and onto the sidewalk across from her apartment building as she tucked another strand of hair behind her ear. suddenly, a gentle yet chilling breeze ran through her dress as she turned back around. It was funny, for a second she swore she could hear the sound of… Wings. But not just any wings. Large wings.

A strange sensation ran up her spine as she found that at the end of the street stood a vaguely familiar man.

Waves of hair streamed down the sides of his face as he reached up and smoothed them behind his ears with one hand. His golden brown eyes practically sparkled with excitement as he looked her up and down. For any other man, Emma would have instantly turned and walked away, but… He seemed to know her.

The two stood frozen for a few moments, but then the man began to move toward her. She instantly straightened her posture and closed her gawking mouth as goose bumps ran up her arms. Gently closing her eyes, she made herself concentrate.

Once she opened them, she focused on using her abilities to see into the man's mind. But to her surprise, she couldn't see anything. It was like looking into an endless void of pure light, and it stung at her mind. The only thing revealed to her was a bright ring of light floating a few inches over the man's head. It looked to be a halo.

When she looked back down at his face, the golden-eyed man was only a few feet away from her. What was he? Of course he wasn't a demon, she had had enough encounters with them to spot one instantly, but the ring over his head could only mean one thing.

Her mouth went dry as his intense eyes stared deep into her own. He was chewing on something, and his white-toothed smile brought her guard down for some reason. He seemed so awkwardly approachable, and it only made her tense up even more. People continued to push past them as the longhaired man suddenly spoke.

"So kid," he said, "what's your name?"

Emma hesitated before answering, she knew better than to give an honest answer.

"My name is Alice… Alice Lewis," she managed to say while maintaining a stern expression. "And you are?"

The man nodded his head with a sly grin still plastered to his scruffy face. It was as if he were expecting to hear a lie.

"You know what? Times been real good to you Emma," he said with a joking smile.

Her face paled at his words.

"As for me doll-face," he said with a small bow. "My name is Gabriel."

* * *

"Gabriel," Emma said.

"Yes," he replied.

"The archangel," she repeated.

"Yes," he said a little less patiently. Gabriel breathed out heavily through his nose as if he were implying that her shocked state was uncalled for.

Emma was stunned. Completely lost as she continued to stare at the bright-eyed man sitting across from her. The small and empty diner that Gabriel had brought her to seemed nice enough, but she couldn't shake the unsettling feeling of anxiety that repeatedly clouded her thoughts.

"Gabriel… The-"

"_Archangel _yes Emma we went through this on the way here now didn't we?" Gabriel interrupted with a horribly dramatic roll of his eyes.

The girl frowned deeply as she continued to stare in awe at the man sitting across from her. So far, he had no proof of actually being an archangel, and the mystery surrounding him frustrated her immensely.

"Well… This has never happened before. I mean… Wow?" Emma breathed as she focused on the analog clock over the man's shoulder.

It read 12:27pm. She needed to be at the Robinson home by at least two o'clock.

She squirmed nervously in her seat as she tried to focus on her main objective. Now that she thought about it. This was completely wrong. This whole situation was **completely wrong.**

**Never **had someone ever disrupted time like this… Ever!

She had gone through the past three hours over and over again with no trace of an archangel, and suddenly… Gabriel?

Whoever this man was, he must have been powerful, and he must have been unaffected by her rewinding time or else he wouldn't be sitting across from her.

Emma opened her mouth to speak, but decided against it as she quickly shook her head. All she could do was stare blankly at the well-dressed, halo crowned man in front of her.

Suddenly, a pain in Emma's hand brought her out of her daze. She looked down to see that she was clenching her fists. Her bruised knuckles cracked and bled as she gasped and looked at the clock behind Gabriel.

12:32pm.

"_Shit! I've been staring at him for five minutes!?"_ She thought to herself as she remembered how urgent it was for her to get moving. Finally finding her voice, she spoke up.

"Okay, whoever you are, I need to be somewhere _now_. Just tell me why you've been looking for me and I'll be on my way," She said with as much authority as she could muster.

The man rolled his eyes once more as if she were missing something obvious.

"_Because _kiddo, I know all about the little grudge your holding over the Four Horsemen," he said as he curled his lips in anticipation of her reaction.

Emma was speechless. But above all else, afraid.

He really did know her, but to what extent, she didn't really know. Suddenly, Gabriel's voice once again shocked her out of her surprised state.

"Ya know, you're starting to look pretty stupid with your mouth hanging open like that all the time," he said with another smile.

Emma gasped at just how rude he was acting. He _was_ the one who barged into her life after all, and the last thing she wanted was to fight an angel in broad daylight. No matter how flustered she felt, Emma knew that she had to keep her wits about her. She couldn't let her guard down for a second, and every minute counted. So instead of gawking like an idiot, she decided to go for a different approach.

"Well what are you here to tell me then?" she asked with a straight face.

"What do you mean? I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd say hello to little Ms. Suffer-in-silence herself," Gabriel said as if he were laughing at his own inside joke.

Emma stiffened a little as a confused look once again took over her face.

"Well you're the messenger right?" She asked.

"Excuse me. The what?"

"Well I mean, if you actually are Gabriel, you're not _really_ an archangel. You're more of a… Glorified postman," she said with a stern expression.

Gabriel looked just as stunned as she previously felt. He stared at her in silence as all of Emma's adrenaline quickly turned into more anxiety.

"_Dammit… Did I really just anger an archangel? I didn't even know they existed until today! Okay Emma you should just apologize. Come on… you can do it…"_ She thought as she pursed her lips and attempted to maintain a calm composure.

Unfortunately, the angels irritating personality was clouding her better judgment. She couldn't bring herself to _apologize_ to Gabriel even if her life depended on it. Before he could speak again, Emma quickly interrupted.

"Can you at least tell me why I've been _graced_ with the presence of an archangel? I must say… You're different from what I imagined_ your_ kind to be like," she said while visibly holding back harsher words.

Gabriel let out a huff of air as he tilted his head to one side.

"How old are you kid?" he asked with a bright smile.

Now it was Emma's turn to scoff.

"I'm no child. I'm like a God here and you _must_ know as much." She fired back. "I'm forty-nine years old."

Gabriel snorted as he forced a laugh through his nose.

"Jeez, you had me fooled _oh great and powerful _Barbie! God, you look like you could be sixteen!" he yelled as he threw his hands into the air. Emma couldn't believe how insane he was. She clenched her jaw as she narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance.

"_What… The hell is a Barbie?"_ she thought to herself as she opened her mouth to speak.

"Well… looks can be deceiving." she replied dryly as she trailed off.

"Huh, you're tellin me." Gabriel acknowledged.

Emma rolled her eyes as she looked once more at the clock behind Gabriel. It was nearing one in the afternoon, and she only had limited time to deal with her case and still make it back to Marge by three.

Throwing Gabriel a disgusted look, she stood calmly from her seat and quickly made her way to the front door. Gabriel could only watch her back as her braid swayed from side to side behind her.

"Your making a mistake kid!" He yelled as she pushed against the doors that lead to the street.

"_Finally"_ she thought to herself, "_I've wasted enough time with Mr. postman over there, and now I can focus on…" _Emma let her thoughts scatter as she stepped outside. Or at least she would have if she didn't step into another diner instead.

"What?" she whispered as she looked at the table where Gabriel was sitting. He smirked confidently as he raised an eyebrow.

"Going somewhere?" he asked in mock curiosity.

Emma glared at him as she looked behind her. The same empty diner was all she saw, and Gabriel still sat at the table just a few feet behind her. She was stuck in a long row of rooms all identical to each other, and in each, an equally obnoxious archangel sat at a table grinning up at her.

"_Fuck…"_ She thought to herself as she began to ball her hands into fists.

In all honesty, part of her was impressed. Gabriel must have put a lot of effort into constructing an endless rift in space just to keep her trapped, but the feeling of awe quickly turned to a furious rage as she looked over at the angel.

"Alright enough of this." She snapped as she stormed back to the center of the room.

She closed her eyes and concentrated with everything she had. Gabriel had a strong hold on the space around them, but she new that if she tried hard enough she could tare through his little _magic trick_. As she finally found what she felt was the weakest part of Gabriel's looped room, she gripped it tight with her mind. Gabriel was at her side in an instant as he grabbed her hand.

"Alright alright! Don't make me beg kid! Just sit down, I need your help more than you know." He pleaded.

It must have been the first thing he said to her that wasn't coated in humor or followed by an eye roll. The change in his tone made her sigh as she begrudgingly opened her eyes and turned to face him. Gabriel seemed relieved for a little while, but the straight line that his lips once formed soon grew into a sly grin.

Emma's frustration at Gabriel's constant knowing smile was pushing her over the edge.

"You know _nothing_ of my grudge against the Horsemen. I've spent my entire life running from them, and for what? I haven't learned anything, and I sure as hell can't fight them." She growled. She used her mind to pick a glass cup up off of Gabriel's table.

She threw it against the wall behind him as she fought to control herself. The clock fell onto the shattered pieces of glass on the floor, and she saw that the time was now 1:08pm. Time was moving too fast.

Frustrated, she relaxed her hands and closed her eyes. If she knew anything about herself, it was that she had an extremely short temper, and Gabriel just kept pushing her.

"I don't have time for this!" she yelled. "Those bastards killed my sister and poisoned my father. I don't want anything accept for their heads on a fucking stake."

All of her built up anger exploded outward as the room began to shake. Lights flickered on and off as Gabriel looked up at the ceiling just in time to see a large crack race across it's regal white design. Chairs toppled over as the ground began to vibrate in tandem with her heartbeat, and Gabriel could feel her presence in the room more than he ever imagined.

His eyes flashed back to Emma's light ones as he took in a short and quick breath. His smile was gone, and a look of understanding.

"Don't play games with me _Gabriel, _you have _no_ idea what I can do. I'm stronger than you could ever imagine, and if you don't let me leave I swear... I'll rip your heart out and shove it down your fucking throat. Why would you even want my help anyway? What could some _kid_ offer!?" She shouted.

She knew that anger would get her nowhere, but that never stopped her from yelling before.

Gabriel stared at her in silence. He sighed and smiled gently at her outburst before speaking.

"Your not just _some kid_ and you know it… But for the love of god don't be so full of yourself!" He yelled in an awkwardly joking tone.

All at once, the room stopped vibrating. The crack in the ceiling stopped growing, and all the chairs returned to their upright position as Emma slowly let her tense body relaxed. Her shoulders slumped and a heavy sigh left her mouth as she stared at the archangel in front of her.

She needed to cool down.

God… She needed a cigarette.

"I don't need you to tell me anything Gabriel. Why don't you just leave so I can get on with my day. Actually no! Tell me what the hell you want," she said tiredly as she cleared her throat.

"Mind if I smoke? Well… You wouldn't be able to stop me anyway," she said with a small shake of her head.

Putting her hand into her small handbag, she pulled out a new pack of her favourite brand of cigarettes.

"Dreadful habit," Gabriel said as he narrowed his eyes at her.

Emma only scoffed in response as she flicked the end of the cigarette she had chosen. Sparks flew from her fingertips as an orange pulse began to work its way across the tip of the Lucky Strike cigarette.

"Keeps me thin. I only do it after a good yell." She stated with a sideways glance at the angel.

"Oh please. You don't need to be any thinner, _trust_ me princess." He said with an eye roll and a look of distaste.

The girl only frowned as she shook her head at his words. "Well maybe you should try one then, heard it wakes up your brain cells too."

Gabriel's eyes widened a little as he looked at the girl in front of him. A small chuckle played in the back of his throat as he bit his lip in order to refrain from laughing.

"Huh. Funny. Now _**that's**_ the Emma I've heard of…" he muttered. " But I didn't think you'd be such a royal bitch."

Emma looked up just as he turned and began to sit back down. A stream of smoke left her gently parted lips as she savored its flavor. Contemplating whether to try for another escape, she continued to stare into the golden-brown eyes of the man who had come into her life. The more she struggled to figure him out, the more pieces of the puzzle she found, and if there was anything Emma hated more than wasting time, it was not being able to understand something.

Gabriel smiled as he found his usual joking attitude once more. It didn't take the blonde haired girl long to realize that the smile didn't reach his eyes. He seemed tired.

"Oh come on kid. _**You**_ want to learn more about the horsemen, _**I**_ want to learn more about the horsemen, I mean really! Its like we were _destined _to team up!" he exclaimed.

"I doubt that very much," Emma retorted as she crinkled her nose at the thought of working together with Gabriel.

She sighed heavily as she took another deep drag from her cigarette.

"_Easy girl… He's not worth it… Just turn around and- Oh right… No leaving… shit… Well what time is it then?" _Emma thought to herself as she turned away from Gabriel and looked over at the clock lying on the ground. It now read 1:35pm.

"Dammit! Are you doing this on purpose?" she shouted causing Gabriel to jump a little. "It's been nice yelling at you, but I've got places to be and-"

"You're not going _anywhere_ till I say so sweaty." Gabriel interrupted with a satisfied grin.

Emma's posture fell as she remembered just how trapped she really was. That same bubble of anger was starting its way up again, and she gritted her teeth as she thought of ways to get out of her current situation.

Suddenly. A fantastic idea hit her.

"Okay…" she said with little resolve. "For whatever reason, you want my help with understanding the Horsemen. I'll comply… but on one condition. I need you to kill something for me."

Intrigued, Gabriel's eyebrows shot straight up. Emma suppressed a grin as she watched Gabriel's expression grow more and more interested. This seemed to be right up his ally.

Clearing his throat, Gabriel straitened his expression as to seem more serious.

"Well kiddo, sure you're making the right choice?" He asked through pursed lips.

Emma shuttered at the name he insisted on calling her. With a heavy sigh, she continued to finish her thoughts.

"All I'm saying is if you help me with my next case, I'll help you with your hunt for information regarding the Horsemen." Emma said with another exhale of smoke.

Gabriel shook his head as he dramatically waved the thick fog away from his nose with his hand. It felt as though he wasn't taking the girl seriously, but with a wink of his eye and a quick mouthful of cake that had suddenly materialized in front of him, he spoke up.

"Perfect. When do we start?"

* * *

It was a long and awkward walk to the edge of the city where the Robinson family lived. Perhaps refusing to let Gabriel teleport them to the house she was looking for was a bad idea. She could barley keep her thoughts straight with Gabriel's constant ranting about the '_state of humanity'_ and how '_unsurprised he was to find her getting wrapped up in it'_.

"Gabriel please, I need to concentrate." she said as she continued to walk beside him. He snorted in response.

"Oh please, you don't need to concentrate to take down whatever baddy you're after," he said.

"I do when there's four so do you mind?" she fired back.

Rubbing her temples as she walked, Emma couldn't quite grasp what the future held for her and Gabriel. The more she tried to piece it together, the more scattered it appeared. It felt as though Gabriel's presence was interfering with her powers in some way.

Gabriel, though his smile never truly faded, took on a more somber expression.

"Look, kid. If you're really this worried about facing whatever it is you're after, why don't you just let me handle the whole thing?" he asked.

The ache in Emma's skull was worsening with each step, and Gabriel's voice only made it worse.

"Please just stop talking for one second. I wouldn't trust you alone with a pebble let alone the lives of two other humans," she stated as she continued to rub the sides of her head soothingly.

Gabriel, seeming a little offended, decided to go against his better judgment and argue with her just a little more. Did she not understand that he was at least a hundred thousand times her age?

"Well, what's the point of all this then? Why are we even out here in the middle of nowhere-land when you could be doing something worth while?" he asked with a hint of exasperation in his voice. "I thought you said you _hated_ humans."

Emma's eyebrows suddenly inched there way closer and closer together as she turned to look at Gabriel as they walked.

"I never said I hated them," she said as she slowly dropped her hands away from her head. "I never said that to anyone."

Her full attention was now on Gabriel. She truly hadn't said that to anyone, and the fact that Gabriel somehow knew of her dislike for humans was unsettling to say the least. She hated meeting knew people, and things like this only made her hate it more.

Emma began to slow her pace as she studied Gabriel's face more closely. The light from his halo was starting to block her view, but for a second, she could swear she saw regret in his eyes. Unfortunately for her, Gabriel seemed to have come up with an answer to her previous statement.

"Look Ems, you see this ring of light around my pretty little head?" Gabriel asked as he flamboyantly gestured towards the top of his head.

"Well that there is known as a _halo_, get it? These things called _angels_ have them. And Guess what? Angels can sometimes _know _things about people because of their _celestial god given power. _And trust me kid, you're an open book," he taunted with a little too much enthusiasm.

Every single word was laced with irritating sarcasm. He was speaking as if she were the most dense person he had ever met.

"_Relax Emma… Breath…"_ she told herself as she focused on finding her way to the Robinson house. Instead of playing into his game, Emma decided to once again, try and decipher the puzzle that was Gabriel.

"You talk to me as if we have history," she said warily.

Gabriel blinked a few times before taking a deep breath in. Raking a hand through the mane of hair that surrounded his face, he slowly turned towards Emma. She kept a straight face as she watched him cautiously from the corner of her eye.

"We do have history," he said after a whiles pause. "I've been watching you for quite some time."

Gabriel began to inch his way closer to her as he continued to walk.

"I- I love you Emma," he said.

Emma's eyes practically leapt out of her head. She gasped so loudly that her chest hurt and her cheeks burned red as she turned and stared into Gabriel's eyes.

Suddenly, he burst out laughing. A few tears actually managed to roll down the sides of his face as he nearly fell over giggling like a child.

The girls face quickly fell into a look of confusion. Was he… joking?

"I can't believe it! Oh man I wish you could have seen your face! That was priceless!" Gabriel yelled as he wrapped his arms around his middle and continued to laugh uncontrollably.

"You preposterous… Irrelevant- Idiot! Why are you so annoying?! I'd rather chew glass then spend another second with you!" she shouted as she moved to storm off. Her face still shone bright crimson as she firmly crossed her arms.

"Ouch! Words like that can hurt a guys feelings!" Gabriel managed to squeak out between fits of laughter.

When she finally did turn back to look at him, a smile still lit up the angels face, but a grave expression seemed to float in his eyes. It was enough to make Emma forget about his little _joke_ for now.

"Look… Doll face… I'm only here to help. I really _really_ am. You've just gotta trust me," he said as he held back small bursts of laughter.

Emma sighed as she uncrossed her arms and let her head fall back. Looking at the sky as she did so, a small smile made its way to her lips. Gabriel was the first person to ever _joke around_ with her. This couldn't be what it felt like to have a friend could it? Maybe going about the world alone was a mistake on her part after all. But she digressed. Gabriel didn't seem to be an ideal candidate for a first friend.

"Oh don't act all tough kid, I saw that smile." Gabriel said as he moved to put an arm around her. Emma backed away before he could touch her as she let her face fall back into its usual grim state.

Gabriel sighed heavily. Maybe now was the time to cool it with his _annoying-older-brother_ act.

Emma seemed to have worked something out in her mind as she shook her head at Gabriel and quickly turned to continue walking.

"Come on," she said. "We're almost there."

"Really? Cause… I don't see much of anything out here," Gabriel responded as he began to stare off into the distance.

They had reached the edge of a field as they left the main road, and all that could be seen was miles and miles of farmland.

Her blue dress swayed gently in the cool September breeze as she looked over at Gabriel. It was only now that she noticed how strong his features were. Squinting up at him through the light of his halo made him seem so much older then he let on. His almond coloured eyes looked _beautiful_ in the hazy sunlight through the fog, and the stubble on his jawline made him look, in an odd way, tough. But of course, she couldn't forget that this wasn't truly Gabriel. It was his vessel. His weapon.

Again an odd feeling overwhelmed her. She really _had_ seen him before, but it was such a faded memory…

Suddenly, Gabriel broke the silence.

"Well sure this is a beautiful field and all, but what exactly are we looking for?" he asked as he looked over his shoulder at the girl beside him.

Quickly looking away from Gabriel's face, she fixed her sight on a point far off into the distance.

"Look, see? Way out there, just behind those old trees. There's a farm house just beyond there," she said, quickly stretching out her arm and pointing directly in front of them.

It looked to be about a half-mile walk, but neither of them seemed to want to complain. If they were fast, they could get there by 2:25 o'clock.

"Alright then, care to tell me what were gonna find there? I've been playing nice and not asking question, but come on kid give me the low down already," Gabriel said as he turned to face her.

Emma only tilted her head in confusion as she began to rub her temples once more.

"Pardon? Low down… What does that even… Pardon me?" she questioned as she once again swept a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

Gabriel only sighed as he went to put a hand on Emma's shoulder. To his surprise, she didn't jerk away.

"Remind me to speak in simpler terms around you alright?" he joked innocently.

"Gladly," she responded. She was done with Gabriel's ridiculous sayings anyway.

Taking one quick look over her shoulder, Emma stepped into the thigh high weeds of the field. Thorns from plants tickled and pricked her shins as she lifted her dress in order to keep it clean. Gabriel followed close behind her.

"Hey you never answered my question," Gabriel said as he narrowly avoided stepping on a snail.

"What are we going to find in that barn? And how are you going to fight? You're so skinny I'm surprised you haven't been picked up and carried away by the breeze yet, how the hell are you gonna fight?"

Emma simply rolled her eyes as she continued walking. He was such a child. If only he knew just what she was capable of, then maybe he would actually take her seriously. But no matter, she would have his full attention once they reached that barn.

Stopping suddenly, Emma turned to face Gabriel. The light of his halo still irritated her eyes as she forced herself not to use a hand to shield her face.

"What is it kid? Why'd we stop?" Gabriel asked.

Emma turned her focus to the pale white handbag at her side. Thank _god_ she hadn't forgotten it in her apartment earlier on. Making quick work of the buttoned down flaps on its front, she opened the bag and tentatively reached inside.

Once she found what she was looking for, she pulled her hand free, revealing an old looking knife with a hilt made of a deer's antler. Ancient looking glyphs were etched into the blade, and Gabriel's bewildered reaction was just what she was hoping for.

"My oh my, your just full of surprises aren't you kiddo… Is that-"

"The one and only," Emma said with the hint of a smile playing on her expressionless face.

"_Well maybe he's not that dim-witted after all,"_ she thought to herself as she examined the blade in her hand.

"How did… I mean where did? I mean when?" Gabriel stuttered as he struggled to find the right words.

"I found it on a trip to Kurdistan a while back. It nearly cost me an arm and a leg… I'm not exaggerating when I say that either," she said with a shutter.

The look of wonder in Gabriel's eyes made Emma soften slightly. She was the first to admit that she was quick tempered and stubborn, but this… Archangel… Sure was a piece of work.

"Do you have any idea what that does?" Gabriel asked.

Emma only continued to stare blankly at Gabriel. For a being with "_god given cosmic powers"_, he sure didn't know much about her. The girl shook her head in exasperation.

"Oh please," she said. "Quit gawking. Of course I know what it does. This is the only thing that can kill a demon."

"That must have been hell to get! And you did it by yourself? Wow, how was that? Did you w_restle _it out of some monks hands or something?" Gabriel questioned a bit to loudly.

"Yes. it _was_ hard to get, and even harder to hold onto. And no I did not _wrestle_ any monks Gabriel," She stated sourly with a roll of her eyes.

Emma smiled inwardly as she looked back down at the knife in her hand. Gently tossing it into the air, she caught it by its blade and lowered it back into her bag. With a sigh, she turned her attention back to Gabriel.

"Reapers, I hunt them," she said, successfully maintaining her hardened expression.

Gabriel once again crinkled his nose in confusion at her words.

"Well why? Seems kinda pointless actually," he remarked.

Emma flipped a few stray hairs out of her face once more as she turned and continued to walk towards their destination.

"There's a house by the barn. A coloured family lives there. The Robinsons," Emma said as she looked down at her feet.

Just the memory of her first attempt at saving them sent shivers down her spine. At this point however, she might as well tell Gabriel of her work.

"The boy of the house was going to be beaten to death for his shoes on his way home from school. I saw it happen, well I saw his future when I bumped into him... I told him to take the long way home, and reapers don't exactly like people living past their expiration date, and neither does fate," She said while taking in a shaky breath. Explaining this was harder then she expected it to be.

"I've been doing this for a while. I save people, and around one week after the day they were supposed to die, reapers sense them and swarm like moths to_ forcefully_ collect their souls, but I kill them. I'm guessing you've put two and two together and figured out that its been eight days since I saved that boys life. I don't even know his name."

Cautiously stepping over a few patches of mud, the girl fell silent. The pain in her temples kept growing, and she knew that this would be her last time being able to re-live the past three hours. If she failed, there was no going back in time without dying, or worse, breaking something in the universe that she didn't understand. Clearing her throat before she spoke, the girl continued with her explanation.

"I can control time. Well to some extent at least. I'm sure you felt it when I tried to rip myself out of the diner before. I've been working so hard just to save this one family, but I can't…" Emma trailed off as she sighed gently.

She could really go for a cigarette right now.

Gabriel didn't respond. He only walked in silence as he looked at her with a serious expression on his face.

"But why kill reapers? The people would die sooner or later right? Honestly Ems come on… What's the point in saving humans when you don't even like them in the first place? All I'm sayin' is it seems a bit redundant."

Emma paused. In all honesty, she hadn't really thought much about that, but allowing people to die when she had the power to stop it left her feeling ill. She had seen enough families torn apart, including her own.

"Redundant... That's a big word Gabriel, good job," she mooched with a faint smile. Gabriel only watched her closer as he waited for her response.

"I suppose the real reason is that I really hate death. But also, in my own way, to send a message," she said as she continued to eye the gray house.

"Oh seriously now… You gotta stop being so cryptic kid! What message are you sending and who the hell are you sending it to?" Gabriel asked as he picked up his pace in order to walk beside her.

"The Horsemen," she said simply. "That I'm stopping their apocalypse."

Gabriel slowed his pace. He seemed surprised at her words, but not completely shaken.

"Well… What makes you think the end is nigh?" Gabriel asked as nonchalantly as possible. To Emma, it seemed like he knew something she didn't.

"Just that everything after the year two-thousand is hazy, I'm not entirely sure. Just call it a hunch," she said as they reached the beginning of the Robinson family's property line.

A small gray house with a weathered picket fence sat about fifty yards away from them, and the sound of glass shattering against brick caught both of their attention.

"Show time," Gabriel smirked.

Emma quickly pulled the demon-killing blade out of her handbag and ran towards the gray house in front of them.

"What time is it?" she yelled back to Gabriel.

"2:32!" He yelled back. This was good. It wasn't even close to three pm.

"_Alright. Stay calm. You have an archangel with you this time, and you've gone through this _three fucking _times," _she screamed inwardly.

Taking another deep breath, she knew she was ready. This was her last chance to save the Robinson boy and his sister before the reapers got to them. Hopefully with Gabriel tagging along, she would be strong enough to kill the reapers before the hellhound arrived as backup.

She then proceeded to blast through the door, and with Gabriel by her side, she ran into the house.


	3. A Revelation

A/N: Sorry for the long wait oh my goodness! School has been EXTREMELY demanding along with my job outside of my education. I've been excited to get this chapter posted for a while now since it gets the party started in a way :). Hope this answers some of your questions, and thank you to everyone who's been reading! Thanks again!

* * *

**The Timeless** and: A Revelation

**Date:** September 13th, 1914

**Location:** Robinson House, New York

**Start Time:** 2:32 PM

* * *

"_Deep breaths… Deep breaths,"_ Emma repeated to herself. Her mantra keeping her mind clear as screams continued to sound throughout the house. Gabriel kept close to her as they rounded a corner which brought them to a small living room like area.

A fowl smell. It stung at her nose and sent spikes through her heart as she recognized it as the scent of reaper.

A tall, muscular reaper wearing a fine black suit had a firm grip on a young girls hair, and his female accomplice was inches away from the boy that Emma had saved. To the children it was as though air were assaulting them, maybe in there innocence they thought that ghosts were haunting them. This was good, Emma thought, at least they wouldn't know how close to death they were.

The two reapers looked up simultaneously as they felt a strong presence in the room. Emma cleared her throat as she stood a little taller.

"You know why I'm here. Stop this, or I _will _kill you," she said. Not a hint of emotion in her strained voice.

"Kill us…" the tallest reaper scoffed. "Nothing can touch us you pathetic monster."

Gabriel looked over at Emma as he realized what the reaper had said. Sparing him a glance, Emma nodded behind her signalling for him to get back. Smirking a little as he did so, he took a step back from the living room, and allowed Emma to confront the reapers herself; She didn't seem to be in need of help at the moment.

Before any further arguing could occur, Emma slowly brought the demon-killing blade out from behind her back.

The reapers froze, and a third materialized as he took in the scene unfolding in front of him. Just as he did the first time.

"We expected this to be your work Emma. I thought it best that I personally come in order to bring you back to your place. Your _rightful _place," the third reaper said. Emma couldn't help but grit her teeth and clench her jaw as she stared into the dead eyes of the reapers she had come to know so well. He talked as though lives didn't hang in the balance, but of course, he truthfully didn't care.

"Eli…" Emma finally spoke. The name rolled off her tongue as if it were poison. "I had a feeling you would come."

"How could I miss a chance to see your beautiful face once more?" Eli responded with a genuine smile.

Emma shook her head in disgust as she held in a few gags.

"You're disgusting," she spat. "Forty years and you still haven't developed emotions I see."

Eli sighed before stretching his neck from side to side. Looking to the female reaper beside him, he gestured with his head for her to step up beside him and away from the cowering boy Emma had saved.

"Stay calm," Emma whispered to the boy. "It will be okay."

She was met with no response. The boys shuttering lungs and wide eyes only made Emma's iron resolve condense and harden even more as she focused on killing the reapers as fast as she could.

"Come back with us," Eli said plainly. "You were safe once."

"I was never safe and you knew it," Emma said.

Eli blinked a few times as if trying to find the right words.

"We can give you anything. The throne is yours for the taking." He said as his small smile faded.

Emma chuckled a little before responding.

"Give me Maria then."

Eli's hallow expression deepened as his hands fell to his side.

"That is impossible Emma."

"And why is that may I ask?"

Eli cleared his throat as he straightened out a wrinkle in his suit collar.

"Her soul is rotting in Hell. Has been for almost fifty years. We don't venture there, and even if we could, there would be nothing left to salvage. You know this."

Emma's emotionless expression faltered as a pain wrapped itself around her body. It was as if she had forgotten how to breath, and somehow, Eli's words had brought down years of repressed heartache. Marias soul was in hell. Her sisters soul was rotting. Impossible.

"You're lying," she choked out through gritted teeth.

Eli only tilted his head to one side as he stared at her quizzically.

"Why would I lie? It was a shame that we lost our most favourable candidate, but you will have to do. Hopefully the apple didn't fall far from the tree."

Emma's white knuckled grip on her demon-killing blade made her hands bleed and arms tremble as she held herself back from charging in and ripping the reapers heads off. She controlled her anger as best she could before blindly throwing words at the reaper.

"Your hypothetical tree must have been on a hill because I'm _nothing_ like my sister or mother."

"You know exactly who I am referring to Emma, and it isn't your whore mother or idiotic sister," Eli interrupted. He was met with a cold stare.

Sensing an opportunity to defuse the situation, the female reaper beside Eli began to speak.

"What Eli means, is that we _are_ sincerely sorry that War got to you before we did, but we only wish to maintain the natural order. We need you. The world needs you... Death needs you," she pleaded as she took a step closer to Emma.

Emma paused momentarily as she stared blankly at the three reapers in front of her. The tallest one still had his hand tangled in the hair of the youngest girl of the Robinson family, and the boy she had originally saved still had tears streaming down his fragile face.

"And what of the children?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"You sealed their fate the second you saved that boy. What else can we do? Don't play with fire Emma. You may not get burned, but someone will."

Looking into the tired eyes of the trembling boy behind the reapers, Emma's decision was made easy. She once again gave him a look of what she determined to be reassurance as she willed herself to look Eli in the eyes.

"Fuck Death then," she said.

Her body tensed, and she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, the room became vibrant with color. Her left eye began to ache, but she couldn't loose focus now.

Not only her own life, but the lives of two other people now depend on her survival. It was three against one, and as she took in one last slow breath, the room began to slow down.

"_Perfect,"_ she thought to herself. "_Now the real fight begins."_

Lifting her right foot up into the air slowly, she began to run towards Eli. It's an odd thing really, fighting in slow motion. Of course to the outside world she was moving at a normal speed, but in this _bubble_ that she created, interrupting the flow of time was as easy as blinking.

"_Ok Emma think. Closest to the left. Five foot nine. Left-handed. Going for left hook. Best course of action? Reinforced fore arm block at his elbow, dislocate arm. Next."_

Her foot finally hit the floor as she struggled to lift her other leg in order to take another leap. She now turned her attention to the reaper right of Eli.

"_Slight falter in right footstep. Prior knowledge of my fighting style. Movement pattern suggest thoughts of teleportation. Most likely behind me. Solution? Kick to the ribs one-eighty degrees behind me after previous dislocation. Next"_

At this point, the female reaper on her left was getting far to close for her to take time to analyze the fight any further, so now was the time to set her plan in motion.

She let time flow normally once again as the world around her burst back to life. Her prediction of the left hook was correct, and she effectively brought her arm up to block it. Simultaneously grasping the reapers elbow and shoulder, she sped up time.

Her body twisted while still holding the trapped reapers arm, causing a loud pop to burst through the air as she pulled and spun.

The now handicapped reaper fell forward as time suddenly halted once more.

She looked up to the spot where the second reaper was standing. She had vanished. Emma turned quickly in a half circle to find that her second prediction was also correct. The reaper now stood directly behind her with a sorrowful expression on her face.

Emma let go of her grasp on time as she turned to face the female reaper. Her headache came back full force sending pins and needles through her skull as she brought her hands up. Everything would need to be real time now or she ran the risk of passing out.

The reaper lurched forward as she went to punch Emma in the stomach. Blocking the punch, Emma brought her blade wielding hand up high into the air, and went to slam it into the reapers chest. The stab was blocked by the reaper as their wrists smashed against each other, and Emma quickly brought her leg up and kneed her in the stomach.

A pulling at the back of Emma's head made her gasp as she lost balance. Throwing her elbow behind her, she made contact with Eli's jaw just as he pulled her to the ground by her hair. Eli quickly straddled her hips as he slammed Emma's hands against the ground with his own, causing her blade to slide across the floor.

"Stop fighting this Emma! You're only making this worse!"

"Get off!" Emma yelled as she worked up as much mucus in the back of her throat as possible.

She spat in Eli's face as she simultaneously rocked her body to one side. He fell off her as she rolled with him, and quickly grabbed his hair in her hands.

Using her telekinesis, she looked over her shoulder and jerked her head to the side, making the female reaper fly across the room and nearly smash through a wall.

"Do you think this is just a game?" Emma yelled as she picked Eli's head up off the hardwood floor and slammed it back down. Blood vessels in his eyes popped and burst at the impact, and the sound vibrated through her skull like a gunshot.

"Do you think I wanted this fucking life?" Emma screamed once again as she slammed Eli's head into the ground once more. Blood spurted across the floor as he made contact with the ground.

Emma's rage had reached a new level as she raised his head a few inches above the blood stained floor beneath his head, and pressed her thumbs against his open eyes. He screamed loudly as Emma prepared herself to slam his head against the ground once more, but a pair of arms wrapped around her middle and had her thrown into the air and slammed onto her back before she could.

She winced at the pain wrapping around her spine as she pushed off the ground but was pinned to the ground by the female reaper.

"Emma stop!" she yelled, though the look in Emma's eyes told her that it was to late to stop the ensuing rampage.

A sliding sound made the reaper turn her head as she found that the demon killing blade was making its way back to Emma. Before she could react, she was pulled high into the air by her short brown curls, and had her throat clutched between Emma's free hand. Emma's mind buzzed with pain and adrenaline as she held the reaper up with her mind.

"You should have left when you had the chance," Emma barked as she strained her mind to keep hold of the woman in front of her.

Quickly adjusting the demon-killing blade in her hand, she thrust it deep into the reapers stomach.

Hot tears fell down onto Emma's pale cheeks as the brunette reaper convulsed under blade. Bright lights flickered on and off within her body as she withered away to ash.

Letting go of a tense breath, Emma wiped at the reapers tears on her cheeks. She was sure of one thing, they were not her own, but the thought of the reaper crying before her death made Emma pause as she wondered what had made her so sad.

Pushing the female reaper out of her mind, she turned to face Eli and the other reaper, and barley ducked under a broad right hook he had thrown at her. She turned into his body as she went to jam her blade into his stomach, but her arm was caught by the handicapped reaper before she could stab Eli.

Looking up and into Eli's bloodied eyes, she blocked another one of his punches with her left arm as screamed and she smashed her forehead into his nose.

"Fuck!" She screamed as blood began to rush down her forehead.

The head-butt may not have been well executed, but it made Eli instantly bring his hands up to his bloody nose as he clenched his eyes shut in pain.

Emma quickly turned her attention to the reaper on the ground that was holding back her knife-wielding arm.

"Let go." She stated. There was no mercy in her eyes, and the cold that fell over the fallen reaper made his breath catch in his throat.

Not acting fast enough for Emma, she brought up her right leg as she wiped blood out of her eyes, and stomped as hard as she could on the dislocated shoulder of the reaper at her feet.

A terrible scream left ripped through the air as his arm came clean out of its socket.

Blood began to stain the shoulder area of his suit as Emma turned and grabbed the wrist of his remaining hand.

"I hope this hurts as much as I think it will," she said calmly. Adjusting her grip, she began to squeeze his hard.

The sound of bone against bone lit up the room as she crushed the wrist of the reaper on her arm. His face bore an expression that could only be described as one of pure agony as Emma tore her hand out of his broken grip. Without a thought, she buried the blade deep into his skull.

"_One more. Just one more. Stay alive,"_ she thought to herself as she stood quickly and turned to face Eli.

A sudden piercing pain ran through her body as she came face to face with her old friend.

She gasped as she looked down at her stomach. A knife had been buried in her mid section up to the hilt, and the look of determination in the Eli's eyes seemed to outweigh her own.

"I hope this hurts as much as _I_ think it will," he taunted as he began to slowly twist the knife inside her body.

"You really _are_ a monster now, aren't you Emma? I have a friend coming to assist in my efforts to take you back, he's eager to meet you. You never had a choice, you need to come back. Don't be- so... Selfish," Eli choked out as blood continued to flow from his broken nose and swollen eyes. "It's a-"

"Hellhound. Yeah I… I f-figured as much," Emma sputtered out as she moved to stab Eli with the demon-killing knife. He quickly hit his hand against hers, causing the blade to fall to their feet.

He looked surprised as he continued to stare into Emma's now bloodshot eyes.

"You've been through this already haven't you Emma. Well it doesn't much matter, You'll be unconscious within the minute."

The roar of a hellhound made her shutter as she turned her head to look at Gabriel. He sat with his arms crossed and a solemn expression etched into his face.

"_Just say the word," _Gabriel's voice sounded in her head. _"Say the word and I'll help you."_

Emma only turned her attention back to the reaper as she struggled to stay standing. Again, the fowl smell of rot and death flooded her nose, and vomit bubbled in her stomach.

She suddenly remembered something she had repressed. Though she wouldn't admit it, she had actually forgotten about the children. She was a different person when she was angry. She couldn't help but forget about the real reason she went there.

"I'd rather die than let you take these kids," she said as she began to push against the reaper with her mind.

He felt so heavy, and the sound of booming footsteps outside made her vision blur as she tried to focus on anything but the pain.

Suddenly, the footsteps stopped. Emma's breath caught in her throat as she stared into the blank eyes of the reaper in front of her.

"Is this _really_ still about the children Emma? Using them to relieve your mind of your real reason for defying us is the worst sin you could commit. No... You won't die. But you'll wish you could," Eli said as he pulled his knife out of Emma's body. She fell forward, and was caught by Eli who thrust his blade deep into her chest.

A deep and low sucking sound surged through her body as blood raced up her throat and into her mouth.

She went to speak, to move, to lift the demon-killing blade with her mind, but her body was at its limits.

The hellhound was just beyond the front doors. She could smell its charred fur, and the fear that blazed through her was the same as it was the night her sister died.

Looking over at Gabriel once more, she pursed her lips as a cough made the blood in her mouth pour itself over Eli's black suit. Dots began to blur her vision as her exhausted body begged for her to let go. She knew that her fight was over.

"Gabe…" she tried again. "G-Gabriel."

A bright flash of light sent the room into what felt like a void of pure emptiness as Emma felt herself go weightless.

"Just sit tight kid," Gabriel said. "You put on quite the show. Everything's under control."

* * *

She blinked. Then began to breath steadily again.

The bright light faded as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dull colours of the gray walls that surrounded her.

In front of her stood a man with a burning ring of light surrounding his head, and wings on his strong back.

They stretched outwards in front of her as their ends touched the walls on either side of him. The golden brown feathers glistened in a soft glow that poured itself from his very being.

Dark spots littered the otherwise perfect wings of the angel, and just below the line where his feathers ended, Emma could see the head of a reaper in his left hand, and the head of a hellhound in his right.

"Shit," the man murmured. "Made me get my wings dirty…"

"_Wings that match his eyes…_" Emma thought to herself as she stared breathlessly at the man who had just saved her life, and at that moment she knew it wasn't for the first time.

Gabriel turned slowly as he dropped the heads to the ground with a thump. He brushed a few strands of long hair out of his face as he took in Emma's stunned expression. The serious look on his face lightened almost immediately after he laid eyes on her.

With a loud flap of his wings and a serious shoulder roll, his wings folded behind his back and vanished.

"Huh… Well a thank you would be nice doll-face," he said, his voice a breathy monotone. Emma crinkled her nose in confusion as she felt herself come down from her anger.

"How? Y-you were so fast," she said in a daze.

"Yeah don't mention it kid, I guess for a _glorified mailman_ I've got some serious moves don't I?" Gabriel joked.

Emma held back an eye-roll as she looked down to examine her body.

Red splotches of blood were splattered all over her torn cloths, but she felt no pain anywhere.

Gabriel crossed his arms as his warrior persona faded. He sensed a change in Emma, and as she looked up at him with a newfound determination in her eyes, he braced himself for what he knew would be the end of his _peaceful visit._

"We've met before- haven't we?" Emma questioned.

Gabriel noticeably stiffened, but it was obvious that he had a well-prepared answer for her.

"Well kid, I-"

"I'm not talking about Germany Gabriel," Emma interrupted.

Gabriel remained silent. The quirky smile that usually sat on his childish face faltered ever so slightly, but after a few moments more of silence, it left him entirely.

"I didn't think you would remember that," Gabriel said with obvious shame in his voice. But shame over what? Saving her life?

"I'll admit it took me a while to remember where I had seen your face," Emma said with a small smile. "I remember you. I was… Lying in the streets after running from War in Germany, and I fell into a river near some city in Mexico. I never knew how I got there, but it was you wasn't it? It was you the entire time."

It felt odd to not be yelling at him, but for some reason, she _wanted_ to get along with him.

"I knew you seemed familiar, I just didn't piece it all together until I saw your wings… They matched your eyes even then Gabriel. Of course you had a different vessel, but like I said, that's not what I'm talking about. You know me, but its more than just from picking me up of the streets when I was six," Emma said, trailing off as she tried to focus on what to say next. If she was right, then a storm was headed her way, and she wasn't entirely sure she was ready for it.

"You know me because you spent time with me… A lot of time I assume," she said as her calm composure began to slip.

"You know me because we've been friends for a long time," Emma practically whispered the words at this point. Finally accepting what must be true, she opened her mouth to finish her thoughts.

"You came back didn't you- from the future." Emma said as she looked up and into Gabriel's hazel eyes.

He remained still. Very still. But his lack of response only confirmed her thoughts.

"The only question I have now is why did you come back at all? Was it something I did? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to do this!?" Emma shouted as her panic began to rise with her voice.

The look in Gabriel's eyes made Emma feel something she hadn't felt in a long time. He didn't speak, but he didn't have to, for his eyes spoke a thousand words. He looked sad, but with his head tilted slightly to the right it looked like the ghost of a smile was playing on his lips. Emma could feel that he cared about her, maybe not love, but something was going to happen to her, or him, that couldn't be allowed to take place. If he was willing to potentially through away the lives of millions of people just to see her at this point in time, then the problem must be serious.

"Does this have to do with the apocalypse?" Emma asked cautiously.

"Damn," Gabriel gasped. "I didn't think you would figure it out this quickly."

Emma, though confident with her ability to read people, still wasn't sure whether Gabriel seemed subtly happy or sad. He still hadn't answered her question, but as he hung his head and put his hands on his hips, Emma let her defenses drop.

"Gabriel… I-"

"You're right Emma… About everything. The apocalypse, it's going to destroy the planet," Gabriel interrupted.

He didn't, or couldn't, look her in the eyes. It was as if he was scared to see her reaction, but to his surprise, there was no screaming or yelling. No punches thrown, no kicks or crying, there was only more silence.

"I meet you on the battlefield, you choose to fight with the demons and the Horsemen. You screw up kid, you really do. I came back because you suck at doing the right thing, and I should have been there for you. Well I guess there's no nice way to put this now is there," Gabriel said with a chuckle. "You single handedly fuck up the world. You cause the apocalypse you shit-head."

Looking up from his feet, Gabriel was shocked with what he saw.

Emma was still. Completely silent in every meaning of the word, and with each passing second his anxiety levels grew.

"The only thing…" Emma whispered. "The only _fucking_ thing I wanted to keep safe and I destroy it."

Emma smiled as she brought a hand up to cover her mouth. She hiccupped as tears began to prick at her eyes, but she would never allow herself to cry in front of Gabriel. In fact, she did the opposite. What started out as a small chuckle evolved into a giggle, and from there became a thundering laugh. Her stomach began to hurt as she felt each muscle in her body tense up due to the heavy laughter that had taken over.

"Fuck!" she screamed as she continued to laugh. Turning suddenly, she brought up a fist and punched a hole in the wall beside her.

"You know what? I don't care anymore," she said. "I don't know why I try so hard when I know things like this are going to happen!"

Stepping in close, Gabriel gave Emma a cold stare. The girl continued to laugh as her hair clouded her face, but Gabriel knew how much she was hurting.

"Emma, listen closely to what I'm about to say… Don't give up. Please," he whispered.

Emma took in a small breath as she closed her eyes and hung her head. Her breathing slowly calming back to its usual slow pace, she finally decided to speak.

"I'm done Gabriel. I might as well go big or go home you know? I'll just have to enjoy the rest of-"

Emma was interrupted by Gabriel as he gripped her shoulders, slamming her against the wall she had punched a hole in.

"Good God woman you're pathetic! Giving up? What? Its like I don't even know you! Your grand adventure is just fucking beginning! Christ Ems… If this is all you've got, which I _know_ it isn't, then you don't stand a chance!" he yelled.

His grip on her shoulders was so tight that Emma was sure deep bruises would form, but she never pulled away or flinched in the slightest. Instead, she looked deep into Gabriel's eyes. He seemed so cross with his eyebrows bunched together and his jaw clenched the way it was, but once again, Emma could feel his need for her to be more than she was now. His eyes, they always had a way of speaking to her like nothing else could.

Letting a long held breath leave her body, she looked down at her feet.

"That means the horsemen are on the move," she said silently. "I guess we'll have to give them a warm welcome then, huh Mr. mailman?"

She slowly reached up towards him and moved his hands from her shoulders. They fell quickly to his side as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder. She breathed softly as she continued to look into his eyes.

"Gabriel. I dont know how much you know about me, but... There's an evil inside me," Emma began. The words she was looking for struggled to find their way to her mind as she continued speaking.

"I'm just so angry all the time. I wanted to completely destroy those reapers, and when I'm angry- I just can't control myself. Eli used to look after me and Maria when we were kids, but he disappeared the day War caught up with us. He was right even then. I _am _a monster. I realize now that I've just been using the people I save as an excuse to kill reapers. Its like part of me just wants... to watch the world burn."

Gabriel frowned gently as he raised his eyebrows.

"My oh my," he said. "I don't think you've ever told me this much about yourself! Kid, don't be afraid. You're anything _but_ a monster, and reapers are slimly bastards anyway so good riddance."

Emma shook her head as she pulled Gabriel into a hug and gently placed her head on his chest.

"Gabriel," she said. "I think I love you."

Gabriel's mouth dropped open as a serious look of confusion took over his face. A smile suddenly raced across Emma's own face as her calm composure broke under the strain put on her tired body from holding back an intense laugh.

"Gabriel you should have seen your face!" she yelled as she let go of his body in order to hold her sides tightly.

Gabriel smiled as he watched her successfully pull off her first prank. He had seen her grow up once, and this time he wanted to make sure things didn't end the way they did in _his_ future. He had seen the bloodshed she had caused, and the literal time-bomb that was Emma Holt needed to be kept under tight surveillance. He crossed his arms as he transferred his weight from leg to leg.

"Oh screw off sweet-cheeks! I walked right into that one didn't I?" he laughed as a white-toothed grin began to take up his face.

Emma only smiled back as she reviled in the feeling of actually joking around with someone. Looking up and into Gabriel's eyes, she decided that working with him would be the right thing to do.

"Seriously Gabriel, I'm scared," She said as she finally controlled her laughter. "The Horsemen have it out for me_,_ and I don't know what I'm doing! God I feel like I'm going insane!"

"Welcome to the rest of your life," Gabriel said with a wink.

"Well can you at least tell me one thing?" she asked as the they began to make their way out of the house.

"Well you of all people know that anything I say could cause the universe to _implode_, but I mean sure! Why the heck not," he said with a goofy expression. It was a fair warning, but Emma new better than to ask him something that could tear the world apart.

"I just want to know if I ever get a better grasp on my abilities," she asked as they finally made it to the front of the house. Gabriel crossed the threshold of the Robinsons home and stepped outside as he simultaneously turned to face Emma.

"Oh trust me, you're gonna kick ass kid, you have no idea," Gabriel said with a smile. "And man oh man, when I say you're gonna be a babe, I mean _**your gonna be a babe!**_ And you're lucky too because that's gonna get you _so _many places."

Emma's upper lip twisted with confusion as she thought about what Gabriel had just said.

"What? Why is being a baby going to get me places? I thought you said I was going to be- Oh never mind," she muttered with little conviction.

She allowed herself to smile briefly as she let go of trying to understand Gabriel. For all the obnoxious things she had heard him say, she couldn't help but feel comforted by his jokes. She smiled fondly as she shook her head at his words.

"Wait… What time is it?" She asked as a memory began to fight its way back into her head.

"Twenty after three why do you ask?"

A few moment of silence passed between them, Emma looked off into the distance as her eyebrows grew closer together. She struggled to remember what she felt was so important only a few hours ago, but then it came to her.

"Marge had her stroke at three! Dammit…" she cursed as her and Gabriel stepped back into the field that they crossed to get to the Robinson's home. At least she was leaving two unconscious siblings asleep in their beds apposed to hanging by their entrails thanks to a hellhound.

Gabriel only smiled as he nudged Emma with his elbow.

"Oh come on she's fine Ems," he said as he stepped over a rather large ant hill.

Emma grimaced a little as she remembered the sight of Eli's headless body while trying to catch up to Gabriel. She really would have torn him apart if she had the chance, Eli that is, and that scared her more than any Hellhound could. The unnatural aspects of her soul seemed to be changing her more and more as she aged. She was becoming a monster and she knew it. In fact, in telling Gabriel this, maybe she could alter her future.

* * *

Focusing on Gabriel, she found that blood still stained his back as she ran a little to catch up to him. Eventually, the two reached the street at the edge of the field.

By the time she had successfully cleared her mind, she had found a way to keep herself from becoming what Gabriel feared. To tell him the truth was the last thing she wanted, and she knew that it must have been the last thing her future self would have wanted either, so putting this amount of trust in Gabriel must impact her for the better in the long run. Or at least she hoped it would.

"Gabriel, there's one more thing I want to tell you. If you're serious about staying here and fighting alongside me for the sake of _all humanity as we know it,_ no more secrets okay?" she asked as she leaned in closer to him. Gabriel only gave her a sideways glance as he slowed his pace.

"You should know what you're getting into," Emma said as she sighed heavily. This would be harder to say out loud than she thought.

"War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death…They're the only family I have left."

Gabriel stopped walking abruptly as his eyes grew big. His mouth practically dropped to the ground as he turned to face the girl at his side.

Emma swallowed hard as she pursed her lips roughly. It seemed that she truly had taken her secret to the grave, though she didn't know why her future self never told Gabriel.

Taking a moment to grab a cigarette out of her handbag, she lit it with her fingertips and took a long, deep drag.

"I have a mother, or at least I used to," she paused again, and took in another breath of smoke.

"She would tell me about how Maria was 'saved by a kind man' and how we 'were chosen to be his prodigies'. The night you saved me from War back in 1871, he was trying to keep me and my sister away from reapers that where helping us. A lot has changed since then, but one thing remains constant," Emma trailed off as she bit her lips.

"Death was the man who saved Maria. My mother, she wasn't in a good place. She couldn't see her daughter die, so she made a deal. Maria wouldn't be stillborn if he could put parts of his soul inside of her. I was the same a year later. I'm like a reaper human hybrid I guess. In a way, you could say I'm Deaths daughter."


	4. The Colt Paradox

A/N: Well well well what do we have here? Alright its been… a while to say the least since I last updated this, and so much has happened for me that I'm not even disappointed in myself for taking so long! I think I've grown as a writer since the last update so from now on its going to be smoother sailing (Lol I mean we'll see)! Thanks for being patient, but the next chapter is really long. like holy shit its long. But its actually all written, so i just need to edit it. So get ready.

Anyway in this Note I introduce a new character, so sit tight!

* * *

**Note #2: **The Colt Paradox

**Date:** December 14th, 1914

**Location: **New York, America

**Start Time: **11:30pm

* * *

It was a far drop, a far drop indeed. A drop that would kill him fast and quick. His hands trembled against the cold iron beams of the bridge he so desperately clung to as he remembered all the events that lead to this moment.

Cold air chilled his skin through the thin jacket that barely covered his chest as he bit back tears and forced himself to look up.

A starless sky stretched out before him in the night, the blackest he had ever seen. An empty void lay below that rivaled the one he had developed inside, and the gentle sound of rushing water made him gasp and breathe deeply to settle the nausea.

This was a fine night, he decided, a fine night to die.

He let his grip on the metal railings loosen as he leaned forward.

His arms shook violently as his fingers turned blue over the coarse gray that was the bridge he stood on.

He inched his toes closer to the edge.

To die on this night was a luxury he could actually afford. So he kept leaning forward, and now half of each foot stuck out into the void.

He held his breath as he gathered up enough courage to jump from the bridge, but not enough came. Never had enough come. Oddly enough, the thing that brought some courage was the faint whistling that the wind through his jacket made. He pretended it was a call, as dramatic as it sounded. It was a call to his death.

He let go of the beams, and his feet slipped.

A loud bang rang out behind him, and he grabbed hold of the metal bars as he began to fall. All confidence in his act slipped away as he clung to the freezing strips of metal and smacked his shins against its solid frame.

He looked from side to side, then up and down. There was no one, yet the sound still wrung clear as the cold did through his skin. He knew that the sound was not one of imagination.

An odd glint of silver in the dim moonlight made him pull himself over the rail with bloodied fingers and wipe the shock from his face.

A gun lay beneath the rail opposite his side of the bridge, and its beautiful design and exquisite silver finish made his stomach lurch and jolt in recognition.

It had appeared from nowhere, much as his renewed need for survival did. This was the calling he was looking for.

"N-n-no." He struggled to form words through his stutter. His eyes grew big as he swallowed hard. Picking up the gun, he found that it was no different from the way his father had described it.

"T-the." He paused to focus on speaking. "C-c-colt."

It was real, and somehow, it had found its way back to its rightful place. Within its bloodline.

Jacob smiled. He found it. His grandfather's gun. _His_ gun.

The Colt.


	5. A Prophecy

A/N: ok heres a pretty long over due chapter, but its also pretty meaty when it comes to length. Sorry for taking so long (literally almost three months!) but its funny because three months has also passed in the story as well as real life! But anyway. here we go! thanks again for all the follows and reviews, they mean a lot!

* * *

**The Timeless** and: A Prophecy

**Date:** December 25th, 1914

**Location: **New York, America

**Start Time:** 6:30 PM

* * *

Three months had passed since she told Gabriel of the parasite attached to her soul. That horrible thing that she kept hidden away inside her. It left her feeling filthy in her own skin.

Still, three months had come and passed. Three months of awkward conversation and god awful jokes from Gabriel. It was three months of nothing. Fucking nothing. And she was tired of it.

"Stop!" Emma hushed as she suppressed an urge to laugh. "I said stop it!"

With little success at hiding her laughter, Gabriel continued to make faces at the well-dressed men and woman they passed. Todays trip was to the new and improved New York State Museum. Hopefully some light would be shed on the apocalypse, but neither had their hopes up. The Museum was Emma's idea, and that meant to Gabriel, it was aweful.

"I swear Em. These people get a _whiff_ of war and take it as an invitation to dress like the queens comin'," Gabriel whispered as they continued walking.

Emma only shook her head as she stifled a grin. "It's Christmas Gabriel, let them have their fun."

"You_ must_ know that were not going to find anything in this dump right?" he wined. "Besides, half the usual crap burned to the ground with the place two years ago."

"What are you talking about?" she snapped. "This place is state of the art! If anything, we'll find _exactly _what we're looking for."

Gabriel scoffed at her words. "Oh really? I'm tellin' ya kid, I know this psychic and she's_ amazing_! she's only a few states over-"

"I'm not going to Italy Gabriel," Emma interrupted. Her bored tone making Gabriel wince as they continued to walk through the crowded exhibits.

"I don't want to sail halfway around the world to see your little _friend _okay?"

"After all this time you still doubt my judgment," Gabriel shrugged in mock disappointment. "Shame on you!"

Emma sighed as she smoothed hair out of her eyes.

"It's been three months… And you haven't stopped pestering me once," she said with a polite smile as they passed yet another glamorous looking couple.

"Em. I've been to the Vatican. Me and the pope are so chummy I had him takin shots within _half an hour._ Trust me, info on the horsemen ain't gonna be here."

"Alright fine!" Emma groaned. "If things don't work out here then well go to your precious little _Vatican _in your oh so special _Rome_ and see the 'amazing psychic' you've been talking about."

Gabriel smiled at her words, and eventually stopped acting like a child as they made their way to the front desk of the museum. This was the moment of truth. Hopefully someone knew _something_ about the Four Horsemen. A biblical exhibit would be just the thing they needed.

* * *

"Alright I will admit that I didn't have very high hopes," Emma stated miserably.

Of course, the trip to the New York Museum was a failure. Nothing about the Horsemen, or even heaven for that matter was found. Gabriel on the other hand, seemed overjoyed at the lack of information.

"Oh please," he said. "You only wanted to go because I said it was a waste of time… Well now that I think about it… I guess we really had all the time in the world."

Emma sighed so deeply that she thought one of her lungs collapsed. Making_ time_ puns had become one of Gabriel's favourite pass times.

"One more time joke Gabriel and I swear," she warned.

Though Gabriel hoped she would eventually grow to appreciate his sense of humor, he knew he would have to be patient. He smiled inwardly as he remembered their deal.

"Know what this means?" he questioned as he nudged her shoulder with his elbow.

"Oh do tell," Emma sighed.

"Vatican time!" he yelled.

A few people walking past turned to stare as Gabriel clapped his hands over his head enthusiastically. First of all, Emma had not heard of the 'Vatican', but her cheeks burned bright red nonetheless at Gabriel's behavior. She only wished that no one would recognize her as Gabriel focused on getting them to Italy.

"God knows I'm done with dusty old libraries anyway!" Gabriel exclaimed. "I mean Jesus man, I'm an _angel!_ I could have told you all that mumbo jumbo myself if you would have listened!"

Grabbing hold of Emma's hand, he smiled his usual bright smile as she shook her head.

"You're such a child Gabe," she said, her voice once again falling to its usual monotone rhythm.

"Oh you don't know the half of it," he replied with a wink.

With a sigh, Emma closed her eyes as Gabriel let go of her hand and instead wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Now _this_ is gonna get us some answers," he whispered.

Heat rushed over and through her body as she huddled closer him. Her long hair tangled in the rift that the two fell into as they were transported half way across the globe, and the entire time, Emma couldn't help but think about how she had never seen a gold like the ones in Gabriel's wings.

* * *

The city formed slowly, then all at once, and the large church was nothing like Emma had expected. Never in her life had she ever seen such a grand building, and the sun beating down on the stone steps leading upward toward it sent glistening beams of light zig-zagging across the plaza. Her eyes grew big as she continued to stare.

"Amazing," she breathed.

Gabriel smirked at her awestruck expression as he started walking towards the colossal cathedral known as St. Peters Basilica.

"Well you coming?" he yelled over his shoulder.

Hundreds of people swarmed the area surrounding the flawless building, all shouting in languages completely knew to her as she stared in awe. Shouts and laughter vibrated off each marble column supporting shaded walkways around her as she flipped hair out of her face. She had never sensed such emotions in one place, and it was then that she first wondered what God meant to the world she lived in. This small city was nothing like she had read about in manuscripts or newspapers, but she quickly deduced that the talk of poverty and unrest in the Italian government was simply American lies.

Finally gathering her thoughts, she looked for Gabriel in the crowd. After a few moments, she saw his all to familiar halo floating well above the general population.

Gently pushing past civilians on her way to him, she wondered just how old this church was. She had read that its construction began early in the fifteen hundreds, but again, she doubted its accuracy, since the building was in far to pristine of a condition.

"Gabriel this place is amazing! Why didn't you get me to come here earlier?" she asked as she grabbed the man's arm.

Instead of the familiar long haired and golden eyed vessel, a young looking shorthaired man turned around to face her. His face held a stern expression, and he arched his eyebrows at her in confusion as she awkwardly let go of his arm.

"Oh! My mistake, I thought you were, someone else," she stammered out as she turned slowly and tiptoed away.

Sunlight continued to beat against her as she once again looked above everyone's heads.

Finding another halo, she began to move forward. Once she got close enough to the body attached to it, she found that it was a dark haired woman.

She took a step back. She was told by Gabriel that other angels, though now less frequently, would come to earth simply to enjoy the quaint human lifestyle or bless the random traveler, but never did she expect to see so many in one place.

The more she surveyed the people around her, the more halos she found. How she hadn't notice them before was beyond her, but this place was absolutely crawling with angels.

"Emma! There you are, come on kid you cant just wander off in a crowd like this!" Gabriel yelled over the voices in the square.

"Gabriel!" she shouted as she turned towards his voice. He spoke in English, and the familiar sound fell softly against her strained ears.

He stood with arms crossed and a smile on his face, and quickly waved for her to come over.

"Gabe why didn't you tell me there would be angels here?" she asked in a hushed tone.

Gabriel raised his eyebrows as he looked around him.

"You do read right?" he asked while snickering. "This is _Rome._ This has been like religions secret orgy playground since. Forever."

Emma grimaced at his words.

"Ha ha. Yes very funny. Lets just get this over with. What should I expect from this person anyway?" she asked as she ran a hand through her hair. She didn't think she wanted to understand what an 'orgy' was.

Gabriel stiffened a bit at her words.

"Jeez Em, she's gonna tell us everything we need to know. She's nothing like you'd expect."

"Well how? What can we learn from her that we can't learn ourselves?"

"Because stupid, you can't see your own future, and there's things you- We- Need to know. Like for starters where the hell these Horsemen _sons-of-bitches_ are! "

The girl remained silent for a few moments as Gabriel's words sank in.

"_Oh… Right."_ She had almost forgotten that he had come back in time because of her and her role in the apocalypse.

"Is this psychic really that important?" she asked silently. "We've practically wasted three months searching for information, I had forgotten you probably know what's coming anyway."

"Well, Em. I don't really know. Things are happening so_ God damn_ differently from the first time we went through this," he said plainly.

"The _**first** _time we went through this?" Emma yelled. "Are you saying you've done the next ninety-six years with me once already!?"

"Oops! Did I forget to mention that? Ha well sorry Emma," he said with a laugh.

Emma didn't miss the fact that he had used her full name. She bit her lip as she tried to deduce what must have happened to him. Within the next ninety-six years, the world will end, and she has been doing everything in her power to stop it. Obviously she kept making the same mistakes over and over again, but if Gabriel were telling the truth, then things were happening differently, which was good... Right? Maybe him jumping back in time was what kept her powers strained and her focus on the future clouded, but she knew it didn't matter. She _couldn't_ let it matter. What mattered was seeing the Horsemen rotting in hell. Especially Death.

"Fuck," she muttered. "Gabriel… Just tell me. Tell me what to do next. Please."

"You don't understand kid. I can't because I don't know anymore." Gabriel sighed. the breath left his vessel heavily as he struggled to resurrect his usual joking composure.

"The woman we're about to see is like, uh, let's just say she's special, not to mention cryptic as all hell." He paused to run a hand through his hair. "Her name's Marcy and she's the real deal, and hopefully we can figure out how to work our way through this mess. Together. alright?"

Emma let herself relax as she accepted that she had no control over what would happen next. It was an empty feeling she had not come to understand, and she hated it.

"Fine," she said. "Lets meet Marcy."

* * *

"Are you positive she's actually going to help?" Emma asked as she looked around the room they had teleported into. With shades drawn, it looked more like a tomb rather than part of a church.

"Oh come on Em, like I said, you can't see your own future, and in all honesty heaven ain't got much of an idea of what's goin' on with the apocalypse either," Gabriel admitted uneasily.

He had a point. They didn't have anywhere else to go, and libraries were _worthless_ according to Gabriel. It looked like Emma's way was obsolete.

A grand looking room with ceilings fifty feet high was where they now stood. Gabriel seemed familiar with his surroundings, so Emma stuck close to him as he pushed his way through a wide set of golden doors. What now lay in front of them was a dark, dusty old room with the curtains drawn. Stacks upon stacks of old looking books were piled high in each corner, and the only thing providing minimal visibility was the sliver of light that the open doors behind them allowed in.

"Amazing," Emma whispered as she took in the smell of mildew and rust. How old was this place? Today seemed to be full of awe-striking moments for her.

"Told you it would be impressive," Gabriel said with a grin.

"Impressive?" she gasped as she looked over at him. "Gabriel. This is. The trashiest place I have ever seen."

He only scoffed as he shook his head in disbelief.

"This room is older than you kid, and honest-to-god _special _psychics have been brought here for centuries," he said as he gestured to the broad room.

In all honesty, Emma _was_ impressed. But of course, she didn't want to give Gabriel the satisfaction. After months of looking through Museums and chasing after false leads she was through with hitting dead ends. Hopefully this 'Marcy' woman would be useful after all they had been through.

"Okay," Emma began. "But she better not expect much payment… I'm not exactly-"

A cold, high-pitched voice interrupted her mid sentence, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.

"I've been expecting you… Emma Holt," the high-pitched voice squealed out from behind them.

The two turned to find a short, elderly looking woman starring up at Emma with big planet like eyes bugging from her skull. Strands of silver hair laced their way around her small head as she looked Emma up and down.

"Marcy! Jesus… you scared us," Gabriel gasped as he gingerly pulled the woman into an awkward hug.

Emma took this time to look around the large room more closely. The smell of polished wood and lemons now hung in the air as if it traveled with the old woman. Everything about the room seemed dark and toxic, exactly what Emma hated. But she digressed, it was all she had ever known.

Turning her attention back to the heavily robed woman in front of them, Emma scoffed.

"_Perfect,_" she thought to herself. "_I've seen more life in a reaper." _

Gabriel finally let go of Marcy and turned to face Emma as the gray haired woman spoke.

"You. Why has the archangel brought you here?" the woman questioned. Emma hadn't noticed before, but a thick german accent wrapped itself around each word the woman spoke. Her multiple wrinkles proved to be quite the distraction as Emma focused on responding with the simplest words she knew.

"Well actually, the two of us were hoping to gain knowledge about…" she paused to swallow hard. "The Four Horsemen?"

Her voice sounded unsure, and the bashful feeling taking hold of her made her curse herself for seeming weak. As she waited for a response, an odd aura began to pour itself from the old woman. She now felt more than ever that this small, ancient woman was far more than she let on.

Marcy grunted in approval as she turned and walked to the back of the dark room and opened a door. She slipped inside as she gestured for the two of them to follow.

Emma caught Gabriel by the arm as he went to follow her.

"What the hell Gabe I thought you said she was a psychic why didn't she know why we were coming here? She doesn't even look like she has a pulse!" Emma whispered angrily.

"Relax relax!" Gabriel whispered with a finger placed against his lips. "Let her work her magic before you judge."

Emma only grunted as she turned and began to walk towards the back of the dusty old room.

The back _back_ room that they now stepped into, was smaller than the previous one, and also darker.

"Nephilim," Marcy said as she took a seat at an old wooden table. Emma swallowed hard as she recognized the word.

"I'm sorry. Are you saying that you're… a Nephilim?" Emma questioned as she looked over her shoulder at Gabriel. He simply mouthed the words "_I told you so"_ before he too entered the room.

"Well that explains why I can't read you," Emma stated as she absent-mindedly took a seat across from the old woman.

Marcy never took her eyes off of the girl in front of her. A brilliant glass orb sat on a small pedestal between them at the center of the table, and old curtains sat in heaps all around them. To be a nephilim was to be cursed. Cursed to a life of fear, and more likely then not, death. Emma remembered reading once that nephilims were considered sac-religious, and thus should be destroyed, but perhaps that too was wrong.

"Hand," Marcy said plainly.

Emma hesitated as she looked over her shoulder at Gabriel. He only nodded as he gave her weak smirk.

Sighing, Emma did as she was told. Placing her hand in the old woman's leathery ones, she closed her eyes.

"You… You are very difficult to understand Holt," Marcy said as she strained herself trying to find information about the girl in front of her.

Suddenly, the old woman gasped loudly and yanked her hand away from Emma's as if the touch of her skin burned her. She looked horrified, and she would have fallen backward onto her head if Gabriel hadn't appeared behind her.

"What! What did you see Marcy?" Gabriel asked as he smoothed the gray hair out of the old woman's sweating face.

"No no no! No she must leave! I never should have trusted you Gabriel!" the terrified woman choked out as she tried to force her way out of Gabriel's arms.

Emma was stunned. Everything had happened so fast, and the look in Gabriel's eyes told her that this was _anything_ but normal. For the first time in a long time, Emma felt frightened.

"Listen to me, and listen to me well child!" the woman spat. Her wrinkled cheeks grew impossibly frailer as her lips made a firm straight line. Her eyes grew hollow and cold, and though her lungs drew breath, Emma could swear she felt the woman's soul leave her body.

"Daughter of Death. This is my prophecy," she began. Suddenly, all oxygen left the room, leaving only darkness and the old woman's voice as a reminder that the two hadn't slipped completely from reality. She spoke as though her voice strained to leap out of her body, and its newly deepened tone made Emma's stomach twist with anxiety.

"**Essence of bore will begin your journey. The beginning. A child of cyanide leads you to a black horse, one step closer to the key. A sleepless night of black water must witness the hawk destroy the serpent, and reaper will obtain the key. Then the brigade will rain down upon you and seven years and seven days of a Hells night will lead you to three."**

Her body twisted and shook in Gabriel's arms, and Emma stare wide-eyed at the convulsing heap that was once the old woman. A horrified look from Gabriel met Emma's tense one, and the two shared a moment of sheer terror as Marcy began to scream.

"**Three will become two, then two to one! Your fate is sealed, and the key opens up your darkness! You will fall! Death..."**

The old woman paused, and the room fell still and silent.

**"To death."**

Marcy coughed and hacked as a sense of urgency filled the air. Her hair frayed and her body shriveled as she looked into Emma's eyes for the last time.

"One. Final. Message. Shower in the blood of the bore," she said, her voice a mere wisp of air.

"A circle has no beginning. It has no end. It can only. Be broken. By destruction. Use the key..."

The woman suddenly coughed violently, and her eyes rolled back into her head. A gargling sound left her mouth as she stopped breathing and fell back into Gabriel's arms.

"Oh. Oh shit," Gabriel said as he held onto the now unconscious and delusional woman.

"Oh shit is right!" Emma yelled as she struggled to remember every word Marcy had said. "What the hell was that?"

"No Emma I mean _oh shit_ because she's dead!" Gabriel yelled back.

She swallowed hard as she frowned and shrugged.

"Oh- Well I mean she was ancient anyway, so I guess we shouldn't blame ourselves right? You can see her any time in heaven correct? So-" Emma began to trail off as she bit her lip.

Gabriel looked up at her in shock before he smiled slightly. Dropping Marcy's body suddenly, he stood and began to move towards Emma.

"You know kid… I think I'm wearing off on you."

She chuckled as she turned to walk with Gabriel out of the room.

"You wish," she said. "Are we really going to leave her here like this?"

"Trust me Em, there's no helping her now. We need to focus on finding this _bore_ or whatever the hell she meant."

"Bore?" Emma questioned.

"Come on Em were you not listening? God. She said a bunch of crap about _essence of bore_ and crap and it's gonna start everything."

Emma only nodded as Gabriel put an arm around her shoulder. The smell of polished wood and lemon still clung to his clothes, making Emma hold her breath as heat rushed through her.

Though Emma had no idea what the old woman was speaking of, she knew that she had to work hard to remember it. She breathed in deep as she recalled her dying words.

Animals. It focused on different animals. Then numbers. Three and two and one. She couldn't have meant it to be literal, could she? Perhaps they represented people, but as far as she knew, no one in her life resembled a _bore_. But she digressed, Gabriel was wild enough to be any animal.

An unsettling fear gripped her as she thought of where her and Gabriel would start searching, but she was certain that she would find what she was looking for. The _key_, she remembered, must be the answer to everything.

* * *

Her feet hit the ground hard as she sighed and pulled away from Gabriel.

"Where are we?" she asked as she smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. The two now stood in front a small shop. Bloody meats hung in the window and diced cubes of _something_ sat underneath the meat. It was dark outside and in, and it looked to be a butchery.

"New York. Home," Gabriel replied. Emma frowned as she looked around them.

Not a single person walked the snow filled streets under the night sky. The streets empty, an odd sight for New York City.

"What are we doing here?" she asked.

"I was thinking about what Marcy said. About all that animal crap and circles and cyanide. And I thought… 'Hey, lets start from the beginning, essence of bore.' And you know what I thought of first? This. Exact. Place." He pointed upwards, and blowing in the wind making irritating creaking noises, was a wooden sign connected to the butchery with the letters J and C carved deep into it. The only thing Emma would notice however was the dark brown hog insignia on its border.

"The bore," she whispered. "Why here? Are you sure this means anything?"

"Well there's only one way to find out." Gabriel said as he stepped closer to the front door. "I remembered something about this specific butcher. Just wait till you meet him."

"I'm done with _waiting till I meet people_ Gabriel just tell me what this butcher is like!" she whispered angrily.

Gabriel ignored her as he stepped over broken glass and pushed the door open to the butchery. Emma took a step back, and took in the full picture that was the empty shop. She looked to her right, and recognized the street she was on as West Street in her mind. It was dark inside of the shop, and an odd aura loomed around its entrance. Emma felt uneasy.

"Come on Gabriel! Wait for me!" she gasped timidly. She ran forward, and stepped inside.

A cold room greeted them with silence and the smell of raw meat. Emma took deep breaths as she stumbled across the dark floor as the archangel in front of her looked up and down as if searching for something.

"So who owns this place?" she asked as she noted the patterns scratched into the faded wooden walls of the place. They looked to be sigils, pentagrams, and the sight was something neither of them expected.

"He's no one important really. Just-"

A knocking sound underneath the front booth of the shop made them both jump.

"Oh no," Gabriel sighed as he turned to face Emma.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Smell that?"

"No! _What is it_?" she barked back. Gabriel only looked to the wall behind her as she balled her hands into fists. She turned, and through the darkness saw an odd looking sigil carved into a clump of hanging meat. She recognized it from a book she had read a few months ago with Gabriel. It clouded angels powers.

"Oh no," she concluded. "We should leave."

A loud sigh from Gabriel made her look over at him in exasperation.

"To late for that," he said. He nodded with his head over his shoulder, and behind him stood a scrawny looking figure trembling in the darkness.

Emma tensed at the sight. Instinctively taking a step back, she sniffed the air, and gagged at the smell of blood.

"This is going to hurt!" Gabriel shouted. He turned quickly, and moved to grab hold of Emma.

The figure behind him slammed something against the a wall, and a blinding light sent both Gabriel and Emma flying into the wall behind them.

She let out a loud grunt as she hit the wall. Pain rippled through her skull as her head hit brick with a painful crack and her ribs shifted due to the impact. The light faded within a few moments, and the weight pressing her into the wall lessened as she fell to her hands and knees. She brought a hand up to the back of her head as she tried to focus on staying conscious.

"Gabriel! Gabriel are you ok?" she screamed into the darkness. She reached out with her mind to find who she assumed was the butcher, but only cried out at the pain pulsing through her head as she strained to use her telekinesis. What had the butcher done? Banished her angel with his blood? It seemed logical with a bit of witchcraft of some sort, but above all else she hoped she was wrong.

"Gabriel!" she yelled once more. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and it seemed that the butcher had fled. Again she wondered with fear in her heart just where Gabriel had been sent.

Calming herself, she scanned the room around her with her mind, and felt nothing. Not even a blip of the angelic aura that so feverishly pestered her remained in the room. She was alone.

The sound of a light footfall against broken glass made Emma look up as she brought her hand away from her head. Blood soaked her palm.

"Y-y-y-you! Why d-didn't. You. Disappear w-with. Him?" a rugged voice shouted over the buzzing in the girl's ear. A stutter. The man had a stutter, and a bad one at that. She noted the fear in his tone and the pauses for breath he took between his words, and she knew he was no killer.

Peering through the darkness, she saw who had banished Gabriel.

"The butcher," she breathed. The man shook his head.

"Tell me!" he shouted. "Wh-at. Are you? A d-d-d. De-." He paused. "Demon?"

The breaks in his words pained Emma's ears as she wished for the man to stop talking.

"Son, do you ever have the wrong idea," she sighed. She forced herself to stand as she pushed down the rush of nausea foaming in her stomach.

"I'm no angel. And I'm no demon. But you've just made me very,_ very_, angry. And when I get angry people lose limbs."

Her hands formed fists as with a shake of her head her long blonde hair untangled itself and flowed down to just above her hips.

The man screamed in horror as he turned and ran to a door behind him. Swinging it open as hard as he could, he jumped, and ran down the flight of stairs to where Emma assumed he had more traps to banish angels. She would get answers from him, and if Gabriel was right, this butcher could hold the _key_ she was looking for. The key to _what_ exactly she had no idea. She only hoped it related to ending the apocalypse.

For a moment, Emma thought about re-winding time. It wouldn't take much effort since it would only be a few minutes after all. But on the other hand, a moment without Gabriel was a luxury, so why not chase down the deranged butcher of West street alone?

She took her time, and after a while caught her breath. She now moved with only one goal on her mind as she leapt over the small counter at which the butcher had appeared, and moved for the door he disappeared through. Her hair blew around her in a cold wind produced by the winter storm just outside, and her breath formed clouds in front of her as she tore through the door with her mind.

"You ought to have found a good hiding spot because- **FUCK!**" she yelled. A loud snapping noise wrung through the air as she screamed at the top of her lungs. A horrible pain sent sparks through her ankle, and when she looked down, she realized what she had stepped in. The butcher had set up a bear trap at the beginning of the stairs. A fucking _bear trap_.

"**Jesus fuck!**" she yelled as she knelt down and pried the trap open. The rusted metal dug deep into her fingers as she yanked a few times at the trap. Holding back a few tears as she finally pulled herself free, she wiped her hands clean of her own blood on her legs, but winced at the sight of her raw and chipped finger bones. She willed them to heal, but they would not.

That was it. She would kill the butcher. Or at least torture information from him regarding the Horsemen, and _then_ kill him. Looking back down at the blood soaked trapped at her feet, she found that an odd symbol was carved into its trigger plate. It was difficult to make out due to all the blood covering it, but she assumed that it was some sort of warding sigil meant to trap angels. Or maybe demons. But she didn't care.

"You crafty little bugger…" she whispered under her breath as she began to regret not going back for Gabriel.

She stood now with the thought of ripping his soul from his chest consuming her. She ran down the flight of stairs, making sure to stomp loudly and beat against the walls with her mind to strike fear into the stuttering man. When she arrived downstairs, she found that the room she was about to enter was pitch black. She reached out with her mind and felt four walls surrounding a few loose objects like books and shelves filled with various things she couldn't quit make out.

Suddenly, she found him, the butcher, huddled under what she assumed was a desk, and she smiled.

Finding a pair of candles scattered across the floor with her mind, she remained silent in the doorway to the room as she raised a hand, and snapped her fingers.

Fire streamed from her fist on a direct course for the candles.

Light flooded through the room casting dim shadows flickering across the floor and ceiling.

She saw him, the butcher, hiding with his hands over his head and eyes wide in horror as he took in the sight of the blood covered blonde in front of him.

"I'm going to ask you questions," she began. "If you scream. I'll kill you. If you try and run. I'll kill you." Her voice fell cold upon his ears, and she felt his heart clench in his chest.

"P-plea. Please." He stammers out the words desperately as he clutches at a stack of paper in his lap.

Emma blinked, and everything changed. She could see the papers in his hand, smell its fibres, feel its texture, and somehow, she new that the paranoid butcher was more than she could ever imagine.

"You," she said. "You. A simple butcher on West Street."

She couldn't believe it, the words simply couldn't come out of her mouth, but somehow, the idea of his identity etched itself into her brain, effectively branding her with an urgency to protect him.

"You're a prophet," she whispered. "Of the lord. A real live prophet."

"Stay back!" The man yelled as his breathing quickened. "I h-h-heard the B. The." He paused midsentence as he strained to find his voice. "Bear trap went off! You g-got o-out. D-d-don't k-kill. Me. Wh-at." He paused to breath. "What. Are you?"

"Easy," Emma said, slowly raising her hands as she stepped into the room. In an instant, she felt her aura changed. "Okay. I'm sorry, I'm not going to hurt you."

"You didn't. S-seem. To keen o-on. 'T-t-talking.' A few m-moments ago!" He yelled back.

"I'm sorry. I never realized that you were _working with_ _god_," Emma laughed as she continued to stare at the now sweating man.

She sighed as she placed her hands on her hips.

"That angel you just banished a few minutes ago, he was Gabriel," she paused for what hoped felt like dramatic affect. "The archangel."

The man clenched his jaw as he blinked hard at her. Orange light from the candles made his face look a ghostly pale as he swallowed hard and visibly struggled to get words formed in his mouth.

Emma stepped closer. She now understood why Gabriel's instincts lead him to this place.

"_If you like,"_ she thought. "_We could talk like this."_

A look of astonishment flashed across the prophets face. After another moments hesitation, he relaxed and looked her in the eyes.

"_How are you doing this?"_ he thought. His voice sounded clear in her mind, and Emma was impressed. He was a natural.

"_I'm- A reaper of sorts. Have you heard of those?" _she lied, it was easier than explaining her whole Death relation. _"But don't worry. I'm not here to collect your soul or anything harmful like that."_

"_Well how can I trust you?" _he asked.

"_Do you not trust angels?"_ she asked. That was a stupid question and she knew it. Of course he didn't.

"_They won't leave me alone. They're everywhere."_

"_Of course they are everywhere, you need to be protected. you're important! God, you reek of something I can only describe as 'holy'._" Emma laughed.

"_No! I like my privacy," _he muttered. He grew silent as he looked to the ground at which he sat. His aura changed as he reached out behind him in the darkness, and produced what Emma could tell was a gun.

"_They won't bother me anymore," _he said, almost in a trance. "_Never again."_

He pressed his gun to the side of his head, and the clicking sound of a safety trigger sliding backward made Emma stiffen with disbelief.

"No!" she yelled.

The man closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Emma let out a loud sigh as she rubbed at her temples due to the headache she was developing.

"Why is it that I always have to deal with the _deranged_ ones?" she asked herself as she limped closer to the prophet. The candles that lit up the room danced in slow motion as she crouched in front of him, and pushed the gun away from his head. He sat frozen in time, with a small silver bullet wedged halfway between his temple and his ear. Emma waved her hand over it. The bullet slide backward, and the blood dripping from its tip spiralled back into the now closing wound in the mans head.

"That was damn close."

Any further and he would have been gone. She forced the gun out of the prophets frozen grip and threw it across the room. She looked at his lap, and squinted at the gibberish written across the pieces of parchment in his lap. The word of God. She couldn't read it.

She took her attention away from the papers, and remembered that she would have a few minutes to herself as she began to rummage through the mans desk.

Firelight flickered through the darkness as if it struggled to keep its form in the somewhat solid air. Emma frowned.

"_I never was good at freezing fire," _she thought to herself as she took in a deep breath. This would have been so much faster with Gabriel she assumed, but something told her that this man was unstable enough _without_ an angel of the lord standing in front of him.

She only wanted to find information on one person, but the more she looked, the more she found regarding various people around the world. Hopefully one of them would be connected to a horsemen. If what Marcy said translated the way she thought, then the cyanide child would lead her to a black horse.

A black horse. It must have been Famine.

More and more information poured itself into her as she nearly breathed in the contents of various magazines and newspapers scattered around the room and hidden beneath shelves. Oddly enough, there was more German than there was English, and the red circles around specific sentences made Emma bite her lips as she strained to remember the forgotten language.

"German. Why German?"

The memories she had of Germany stung at her mind as she put down the newspapers. Turning quickly, she knocked over a stack of books siting on the floor at her feet. She sighed as she pulled at the stack with her mind, causing them to slide backward through time and reposition themselves. She stopped their ascent as she sensed a separate energy that matched the prophets among the books.

She brought the odd book to her hand.

It was a small, dark brown journal, with the name Jacob Colt written across its cover in beautiful calligraphy.

"Now I understand why Gabriel was so interested in seeing you. Mr. Colt."

A genuine prophet of the lord. For some reason she expected him to be more_ holy_ looking.

After not finding anything of real use, she decided that it would be best to go for a second try at calming the man down. He was the only one that could find anything in the piles of garbage he called notes, and she had to admit, she wasn't very excited to see his brain paint the ceiling.

Sighing heavily, she closed the drawers she had opened in the desk, and walked back over to the man. Something about the last name seemed familiar, so she watched him tentatively as she crouched in front of him.

"Well Jacob, it looks like today is your lucky day. I've decided that you're _not_ going to kill yourself."

She turned her attention back to the candles scattered in odd increments across the floor, and watched as they flickered more vigorously as she let time flow naturally.

* * *

She watched as Jacob made a funny gesture with his hand as his eyes shot open in surprise.

"_Give. Me. The gun!"_ he yelled. His voice coming to her in odd clipped yelps.

"Please Jacob just calm down," Emma reasoned. "You really think that killing yourself will take you away from angels? You'd go straight to them."

He swallowed hard as he squeezed his eyes shut and cracked his fingers.

"_That wasn't were I was intending to go. __How… How can I trust you?"_ he asked as he began to shake.

Emma sighed. She understood how he felt. The _want_ to be normal. The almost painful need that it brought her. She only assumed that Jacob could feel it too.

Her heart softened and her tense muscles relaxed as she slowly reached a hand out and placed it on his shoulder. He flinched and shuttered under her touch, but a miraculous feeling of trust twisted into his mind as he looked Emma in the eyes.

"Please don't be scared," she said in a whisper. Again, Jacob swallowed hard as he stared wide eyed at her.

"My name is Emma Holt. Rhymes with Colt," she said with a faint smile.

She allowed herself to sit down in front of him as she crossed her legs. Blood from the bear trap she had stepped on still wept from her bone deep wound as she winced in pain. When she looked up, she found that the butcher had his eyes locked on the small puddle of blood growing at her feet.

"_You're bleeding…"_ he said in a daze.

"Of course I am, that happens when you step on a bear trap Jacob." Her mouth set into a firm line as she remembered her anger.

"_How do you know my name?"_ The man asked in sudden alarm.

Emma pointed to the uneven stack of books in which she found his journal.

"Read through some of your things. I apologize, but I need information," she said. Her voice softer now than it ever had been before.

Jacob blinked hard, then nodded his head.

Emma smiled. A genuine smile that lasted a few moments longer then she expected it would as she stared in awe at the blessing in front of her.

"_I. I can help you," _Jacob said.

The thought of Gabriel was nothing more than a distant memory as Emma continued to rifle through old manuscripts and dusty books in search of information regarding the Horsemen.

Jacob, to her surprise, was extremely useful. Finding order in his chaos, he made sense of the red scribbles on maps and newspapers as he told Emma all he knew about the angels he had met and the demons he had fled from.

Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to what felt like hours as the two simply enjoyed each others company.

A rare moment of calm during a violent storm. That was what it felt like to Emma. She had never met anyone so mystifying in her life, and when told that Jacob thought the same thing of her, her heart skipped several beats as she stifled a smile.

More and more findings concerning sickness and crime compiled into her memory as she focused on matching animals with the bits of information presented to her.

"_Hawks… Hawks… anything about a hawk. Okay no. A serpent? Jacob must be the bore. But what if Marcy meant literal animals?"_ Emma thought, making sure to keep her inner workings private. Suddenly, Jacob perks up and sends Emma a hopeful look.

"Here!' he yells aloud in confidence. "Cyanide!"

Emma stood and walked across the room with purpose as she reached out for the ancient looking pamphlet in Jacobs hands.

"_You said you where looking for something concerning cyanide. I remember finding this article more than intriguing. Look," _Jacob thought.

"Thank you," she responded as Jacob handed her the pamphlet.

The wording on its cover was German, and after a few moments of concentration, she was able to read it.

* * *

Its title read "The Cyanide Killer." Perfect. She smoothed a hair out of her face as she began to read further.

"'The recent abductions of citizens from Munich has caused national distress…"

She paused. Munich Germany. No way. She unfolded the first layer as she continued reading.

"Doctor Isaac Schmidt will now lead the investigation concerning the disappearances, as more and more bodies continue to be found. Rest assured, this criminal will be caught and brought to justice.

'A horrifying sight,' says one officer Friedrich Bachmeier. 'Bodies poisoned. Drained. Look to have been experimented on.' Officer Bachmeier shared much, but still the mysterious takings plague the city."

Emma froze as she strained to piece together the puzzle before her. The pamphlets release date read a few weeks ago near the beginning of December, but it seemed far to old in her hand to be genuine.

"Odd," she said. "Isaac Schmidt. Isaac Schmidt."

The name was too familiar.

"Oh my god," she gasped suddenly, effectively making Jacob jump out of his skin. "I know how I've heard of him."

Jacob moved closer as he looked her in the eyes.

"_The angels have been talking about him recently, and German manuscripts are hard to come by of late, so I'm glad I saved it."_ Jacob said as he began to scratch his head.

"Isaac Schmidt. _Doctor Isaac Schmidt_! When my mother was sick, he was the one who gave her medication."

Emma was at a loss for words. This was exactly the clue she was hoping for. It was almost… To easy.

"Isaac, he must be tied to the Horsemen. How else could my mother have known him?" she said, more to herself than anyone else. "If the Cyanide Killer is in Germany, and if he's somehow connected to a child…" Emma quickly become lost in deep thought as she began to pace the room.

"_I'm sorry, I still don't understand… What's so important about this doctor?"_ Jacob asked.

"_I'm sorry" _Emma replied._ "I'm just a little… Concerned about where I believe this is going. All I know is that this doctor is somehow in relations with one of the Four Horsemen,"_ she said.

Emma closed her eyes as she recalled the memory of Marcy's prophecy.

**"Essence of bore will begin your journey. The beginning. A child of cyanide leads you to a black horse, one step closer to the key."** The words wrung in her head clear as day. She remembered.

Emma was now certain that Marcy's prophecy was unfolding before her eyes. A "bore", which must have represented Jacob, would lead her to 'the beginning', the child of cyanide. If she was right about that, then she must be right about the more gruesome parts of her future as well.

Realizing how much time had passed since she arrived in the dark room, she decided that now was the time to figure out what exactly happened to her companion Gabriel in the first place.

"_Jacob, how exactly did you banish Gabriel like that?"_ she asked calmly as she turned her attention back to the thin man. His dark eyes shone bright through the candlelight.

"_Oh, its simply called an 'angel banishing sigil. My father taught me how to make them. They've proven useful, as I tend to be weary of knew faces," _he stated. "_You've never heard of them?_"

"_No_," she said. "_I don't know anything about angels, even though all I do is spend time with one."_

Jacob looked at his feet at the mention of Gabriel, and Emma sighed.

"_Jacob," _she thought to herself. "_Jacob Colt. How do I know the name Colt?"_

A sudden memory surfaced as she gasped loudly. She turned to face the startled man beside her. Grabbing his thin arms with her hands, she looked him in the eyes.

"_There wouldn't happen to be a Samuel Colt in your family would there?" _she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes," he said aloud. "He... He was m_y grandfather. Samuel Colt."_

Emma once again stared in awe at the man in front of her. She could feel the soft brown of his eyes and the tender curves of his body as he gave her a quizzical look.

"That gun," Emma said. "It couldn't be-"

"_Yes," _Jacob interrupted bitterly. "_It's **that** Colt. I thought it was a blessing, but it's a curse."_

Emma couldn't focus on his words. An overwhelming feeling of admiration and sudden guilt at wanting to kill him earlier swept through her. He was more than just a random person, he was a prophet. He was the grandson of someone so famous among the unnatural beings that walked the earth, that she felt unworthy just to be touching him. She let her hands slip from his arms down to her waist as she closed her gawking mouth.

Jacob Colt, prophet of the lord. Lead her unknowingly one step closer to ending the apocalypse, and to top it all off, he was the decedent of one of the smartest people Emma had ever read about. She remembered well the day she first heard about the infamous Colt, but never knew that he had had children. Samuel must have had kids a few years before she was born, and the thought made her shutter as she counted out the age difference between her and Jacob.

After a long moment of pause from Emma, Jacob moved closer to her. She froze as he slowly reached a hand up to the side of her head, and smoothed a stray hair out of her face with one finger. He held her gaze, as if asking permission to speak. But Emma couldn't form words.

He was gentle in every meaning of the word, and his reserved politeness left her wondering how a human could exist with these qualities. A painful spark in her middle made her blink a few times. It grew, then faded into nothing as she momentarily forgot how to breath.

Staring into the eyes of someone she sensed to be so pure, she couldn't help but pray that he would venture closer to her.

"_Emma_," he thought. Again, she marvelled at the sound of his voice. It suddenly felt as though the weight of the world was lifted from her back, and was replaced with a light hand resting against her shoulder. Jacob swallowed hard before continuing.

_"I do believe. That you are beautiful. You know that. Correct?_"

He bit his lip as he removed his hand from her shoulder and backed away with red in his cheeks. _B__eautiful._ He had said _beautiful! _

A swelling in her chest left her mouth dry and thoughts racing as she stared blankly at the man in front of her. The longer she stared, the more she felt a warm sensation creeping up her spine. She recognized the feeling, and instantly connected it back to her sister Maria. It was genuine. It felt like love. She nearly laughed at her thoughts as she shook her head.

"Jacob," she said breathlessly, and for the first time in a long time, she genuinely smiled. "I think that we should-"

Her words were suddenly cut off by a blinding flash of light, and the sound of a very heavy object hitting the ground.

"POW! That's what you get BITCH!" Gabriel yelled as he stood back and smiled at the now unconscious prophet at his feet.

Gabriel had found his way back to the butchery in what felt like years, and of course, his first instinct was to completely flatten the poor kid who banished him in the first place.

"GABRIEL!" Emma yelled as she rushed to Jacob's side.

"What? The twerp sent me to Alaska! Fucking _Alaska_! Do you have any idea what it's like in Alaska Em? **Cold** that's what its like! God… So cold."

"That doesn't matter you asshat! He just gave us the key to finding one of the _Four Horsemen_!" she yelled as she examined the cut on Jacobs smooth jaw.

"Asshat? Now I'm really sure I'm starting to wear off on you kid!" Gabriel bellowed. A long laugh followed by wink made Emma fume with anger.

She stood abruptly. Jacob was the first human to show genuine interest in her, and now he would be spitting out his own teeth for the next weak.

Pointing a finger at Gabriel's chest, she advanced on him with pure hatred in her eyes. Gabriel's smile vanished as he began to back away from the girl while holding back laughter.

"I can't believe you would just fly in here and not even _think_ about using your words before your fists! I can't even look at you! Oh lord help me I'm going to pass out. I can't deal with you anymore!" Emma ranted until she had Gabriel pinned to a wall.

"Woah woah! Emma calm down! Loverboy over there will be fine! Look! He's already getting up!" Gabriel said as he looked over Emma's shoulder.

The girl gasped as she turned to see Jacob crawling over to his desk.

"Jacob! What are you…?"Emma trailed of as she saw him wipe blood from his chin and move his stained hand to the underside of his desk.

"Oh no…" Gabriel sighed as he realized what was about to happen.

"**Oh no what!?**" Emma yelled in confusion as she turned back to face Gabriel.

"**Look!**" he yelled.

Emma turned again, and finally realized what was going on.

"Jacob wait!" she yelled, but it was to late. The same bright light from before had her shielding her eyes.

She knew what would happen next, and she slowed down time long enough for her to grab a hold of Gabriel's arm.

Dead silence, then a burst of sound. She closed her eyes as she felt her bones bend and crack under the rush off excruciating heat tossing her through a void of golden light.

A sort of screaming sound echoed off every molecule surrounding her, and the chorus of noise left her wishing she had never grabbed hold of Gabriel in the first place.

An intense feeling of vertigo made her grip on Gabriel loosen, but a firm, strong hand grabbed onto her wrist as she began to slip away. It felt as though she were being pushed through a wall while simultaneously being stretched and pulled apart from all sides. The only thing keeping her grounded, or alive for that matter, was Gabriel's solid hold on her wrist, and the knowledge that he was feeling the same way and was still conscious. Heat raced all around her as she focused on the feeling of Gabriel's hand against her arm, and the light didn't fade until she felt herself fall hard against the ground.

Looking up, she found that Gabriel had fallen on top of her legs, and that the two of them had been thrown into a field of full of snow.

It was still night, and a cold, dark musk hung in the air as she lay looking up at the stars above her. A sign overhead held up by sturdy wooden supports and chains read "Toronto City: 10 Miles."

Emma let out a heavy sigh as her breathing slowed and her breathe formed clouds in front of her. She looked deep into her memories to the time before Jacob had touched the sigil that sent her and Gabriel flying, she studied the sigil well, and committed it to a special part of her mind. It could come in handy.

"_Great,"_ she thought to herself. "_Looks like I wont be seeing him for a while."_

A sharp and sudden pain in her lower back made her yelp in pain as Gabriel came to with his head bobbing up and down in the deep snow.

"Gabriel," she whispered through gritted teeth. "Off. Now."

* * *

A few minutes had passed since the two emerged on the snowy outskirts of the foreign city of Toronto, and with each passing second Emma's concern for the paranoid butcher of West Street grew.

"Huh. Uh. Where are we?" Gabriel asked in a daze. His eyes only half open as he wiped at the cold that quickly turned his cheeks red.

Emma pointed upwards as she propped herself up on her elbows.

Gabriel followed her gaze and found the billboard with big block letters saying "Toronto," and sighed.

"Fucking Canada man," he breathed in disbelief.

"I'm not so worried about where we are as much as I am that I think I'm_ paralyzed_!" Emma yelled as she pulled her wounded leg out from underneath him.

"Oh…" Gabriel sighed as he tilted his head. He looked around them to find that red stained the snow. "Oh!"

He sat up quickly, and Emma closed her eyes as she realized that her legs must have been broken from the fall.

"Okay well! Quick fix babe quick fix don't even worry! Or look…" Gabriel winked as he scrunched up his face in disgust. "Alright uh. Hm. I mean it could have been worse right? Let's just remember to never hold onto each other when things like this happen."

Emma nodded her head solemnly as Gabriel pressed a hand to her shoulder, and then came the painful cold of snow against her freshly unbroken legs.

"Well that was a bust!" Gabriel yelled into the night. A shiver shot up Emma's spine as she sat up and crossed her legs in the snow.

"No," she said, her tone accusing. "It wasn't _'__a bust'_. We did find something. Or at least I did. And maybe you would have _known_ that if you took the time to listen to Jacob!"

Gabriel only looked confused as he tilted his head to one side.

"What? What could we possibly have found out that we didn't already fucking know?" he asked exasperated.

"The child of cyanide that Marcy talked about, he's in Germany. Germany! Where it _began_. And if he's there than we know who else will be with him," she said, still trying to get her breathing under control. "Marcy was right, about everything. We have to go back."

Gabriel threw his head back as he fell to the ground and let his limbs sprawl. Snow gripped at the light dusting of hair that he kept on the lower parts of his face, and Emma couldn't help but stare as she did to Jacob.

"You know… I'm starting to really frigen hate Germany," he said. "And it doesn't get friendlier any time soon."

Emma tilted her head to one side as she pursed her lips and shook her head. Gabriel chuckled as he sat back up.

"This better be worth it Em. I don't think either of us could take another dead end."

Emma moved herself closer to him. She frowned, and slowly reached up a red stained hand toward Gabriel and brushed snow out of his hair.

"This is it Gabriel," she said. "I can feel it. We're going to find a horsemen."

Gabriel smiled at her hopeful words, and placed a hand over the one she had in his hair.

"Marry Christmas Emma." His words barely registered as the faint light from Gabriel's halo grew in its intensity before her eyes. "Lets hope that a dead Horsemen will be your belated present."

She smiled, and thought it odd to be smiling so much in one day. She let her hand fall from Gabriel's head and placed it in his hand.

Germany would be a far colder place then they could ever imagine. With the passing thought of the paranoid prophet kissing at her mind, she closed her eyes.

The two vanished. Leaving only blood and disturbed snow.

The Black Horse. Would die.

* * *

"**Essence of bore will begin your journey. The beginning. A child of cyanide leads you to a black horse, one step closer to the key. A sleepless night of black water must witness the hawk destroy the serpent, and reaper will obtain the key. Then the brigade will rain down upon you and seven years and seven days of a Hells night will lead you to three."**

**"**Three will become two, then two to one! Your fate is sealed, and the key opens up your darkness! You will fall! Death..."****

**"To Death."**

\- Marcy.


	6. Good Doctor

A/N: Quick update that leads into what I think is a very exciting chapter :).

* * *

**Note #3: **Good Doctor

**Date: **December 14th, 1914

**Location: **Munich, Germany

**Start Time:** 7:00PM

* * *

Bavaria, the Doctor found, was a dark place. He traveled long and far to reach the city, and border patrols proved to be quite the inconvenience as he discreetly slipped past them. His home in Berlin, it seemed so far away now, but the investigation was all that mattered.

War campaigns left enthused people in their wake, and not a single person along the way did not ask, upon discovering his more than impressive background, for his professional opinion on the matter.  
"I don't have time," he would say. "Another time. Another time."

He rushed as he feared for the safety of his fellow citizens. With briefcase in hand, and his wife's fountain pen in his breast pocket, he pulled at memories of the Cyanide Killer in his mind.

The killer, he found, had a very specific group that he hunted. Though he (or she) was indiscriminate in their choice of victims when considering factors such as race or sexual orientation, the common targets seemed to be strong, tall people, and in all manners of the word _defiant_.

Studies into the past lives of the victims lead the Doctor to believe that for some reason, this specific factor lead to the deaths of these various people.

The Doctor was close, you see, for he knew something that others did not. His wife was one of these victims. A hunter of supernatural evil throughout his hometown, she was known as a god. It did not take long for the Doctor to understand, that the limp and cold bodies left behind by this "Cyanide Killer," was not of the human species. He further deduced that the unholy creature killing these people, was something far greater in power than any could imagine. He found through private investigation, that a _Horsemen_ was pulling the strings.

It was hard for him to believe, but the disease in its wake and the blackened skin left him believing in the abominations existence.

He was close to finding the Cyanide Killer and his or her villainous puppeteer.

* * *

More rants of war followed him on his journey as he traveled by night. Finally, he had reached Munich, a towering city, and it's streets were filled.

Unrest was a ferocious beast that rampaged through each home that he passed, and his false passport became his greatest companion as on more than one occasion he had to bribe police officers and government officials to let him into restricted areas. Without his false identity, he did not believe he could make it.

* * *

Time passed, and he made it to the Justice Building he traveled so far to see, and again, found his way inside undetected.

He found the morgue, and examined the hidden bodies. After the fourth victim, he found his wife.

Again, he felt tears pool in his eyes and a stone form in his chest as he stared down at her with cold eyes.

Her body was frail, and the green of her lips and the beat red veins in her arms lead the Doctor to believe she was kept alive for a long period of time as Cyanide was introduced to her bloodstream. Perhaps, he thought, something else was added to the mixture.

He let himself cry as he wiped at his face. He knew that he would find the Cyanide Killer, and bring them to justice.

As he turned to leave, a horrifying thing waited for him, and he froze.

Four people stood before him. One, an average man with dark hair and blue eyes. Another, tall and muscular, with dark skin and a stern expression. The other, a short thin looking boy who perhaps was seventeen at the oldest. And the last, a female, with long black hair that reached to her knees, and a smile that left the Doctor trembling.

He fell backward and sent his wives body falling to the ground off the metal table as the four blinked. Deep red eyes surfaced as they stared him down.

The Doctor was horrified, he had read about these beings, but never believed in their existence. He went to speak, but was interrupted.

"I." The first man paused. His dark hair accenting his red eyes. "Am Asmodeus."

"I." The tallest man began. His dark skin nearly matching the first mans hair. "Am Damian."

"I." The youngest man said. His innocent face left the Doctor confused. "Am Belphegor."

The Doctor swallowed hard as his breath left his body in sluggish huffs. He looked to the last intruder. The woman.

"And you?" he asked, though he already formed an educated guess. She smiled, and a dark force left the Doctor trembling from the sight of her.

"I," she said. "Am Abaddon."

She swept a hand through her hair as she shook her head.

"We only want to help you good Doctor. Call us," she paused, then smiled as she felt the Doctors fear grow. "Hell Knights."

She stepped closer, and behind her hid a child. His dark hair and anxious expression made the doctor gasp at the boys genuine fear. He looked to be young, very young, perhaps ten years old, and his gaunt face complimented by his thin physique left the doctor questioning the validity of the boys existence at all.

"His name is Esau," Abaddon said. "Keep him with you. You'll need him. We will be back soon, with a gift."


	7. The Blank Slate

A/N: Now THIS is the chapter I've been excited about posting because things get intense afterward. As always thanks for reading!

* * *

**The Timeless** and: The Blank Slate

**Date:** December 26th, 1914

**Location:** Munich, Germany

**Start Time:** 4:15 AM

* * *

The trip to Germany, though almost instantaneous, was exhausting for them both.

Her long hair blew around her in the cold morning air, and she hugged her arms close to her body in order to keep warm. Gabriel shuttered as wind blew through his shirt, and instinctively grabbed Emma's wrist.

"Come on, we need to get inside," he said.

He began to lead her through winding streets as he kept a calm composure as best he could, but Emma could tell he was as nervous as she was.

A Horsemen. In the flesh. Literal evil incarnate, and it was all too real for some reason.

It was still relatively dark, and the only thing Emma could focus on was the light from Gabriel's halo as she absentmindedly thought back to Jacob and his irresistible voice inside her head. It hummed and wrung through her mind clear as day as Gabriel squeezed her wrist tighter. Jacob was charming, and the thought of him left a faint smile on her wind-chilled face.

Again the cold brought her back to reality, and she frowned.

"I need a cigarette," she sighed, and Gabriel was quick to frown in response.

"Dirty habit kid."

"We've had that conversation before," she snapped, and was surprised when Gabriel didn't even raise an eyebrow or argue back.

She knew he disapproved of her smoking, but she missed their daily banter for some reason. Something had changed between them within the little time that they first met Jacob, and it felt horrible.

Emma couldn't quite put her finger on it. Perhaps it was the way Gabriel walked. The way his spectral wings slid invisibly past her as she shuttered beneath their presence. Or maybe it was the haunting reality of the prophecy Gabriel's nephilim Marcy had told them. When she really thought about it, none of that mattered. Gabriel, her only friend, was distressed, and he was _never_ fucking distressed about _anything_.

She huddled closer to him as snow began to stick to her trembling legs. Gabriel sighed, and put an arm around her shoulder as he slowed his pace.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.

"I'm not quite sure," she said tentatively. "Is it about Jacob?"

"No! No it's not about skinny McCrazy back there. I'm thinking about-"

"He's not crazy," she interrupted, obviously annoyed judging by her tone. "He's just…"

"Misunderstood?" Gabriel finished for her. "Oh don't give me that crap Em the Colt bloodline is cursed."

Emma let out a deep ribcage-shifting sigh as she bit her lip. The cold was making them both frustrated, and for some reason, the usual inviting feelings that came with Gabriel seemed to fade with each snow bitten step they took.

"Gabriel, I don't want to fight."

"Well that's a first," he laughed. Emma only glared at her feet as she walked.

"We just need to find this Doctor. Doctor Isaac Schmidt," she said.

"Right," Gabriel huffed. "Why is he important again?"

"Because you simpleton he's working the Cyanide Killer case and we need to speak with him about the victims."

Gabriel gritted his teeth as he gave her a cold stare.

"Don't call me a simpleton Em. Fuck I feel like you forget that I'm thousands upon thousands of years old."

"Then act like it," she said simply, and with one hand reached into her pocket and produced a Lucky Strike cigarette.

Gabriel let go of her as he moved to the far end of the ally way they had turned down.

"_Shit_," she thought to herself. "_Why would I say that?"_

She felt irritable to say the least, but the smoke on her lips that filled her lungs felt soothing compared to the cold around her.

Gabriel was silent, and the light of his halo dimmed further than Emma had ever seen. Again she thought of Jacob and his lingering touch against her shoulder. She missed him, and they had only spent a small amount of time together.

She breathed in deep to chase the smoke down from her cigarette, and threw the nub to the snow.

"I fucking hate Germany," Gabriel grunted.

"Yes. I know you do," Emma sighed. She cursed herself for sounding so cold to him, but something inside her couldn't help it. "Where are we going?"

"Justice Building," Gabriel said. "Still remember how to speak German?"

"Of _course _I remember German I'm not_ stupid_. Why there?"

"The pamphlet_ Jacob_ gave you talked about how it was this Doctor's base or whatever."

"I don't think it did. _Gabriel_."

"Yes it did. _Emma_."

"No it didn't."

"Yes. Kid. It did."

"How would you know?" she yelled. "You punched Jacob across the room before even _I_ could finish it!"

She bit the inside of her mouth hard as she focused on controlling her anger, and took a deep breath in as she watched Gabriel do the same.

"I read it between the time it took him to _banish_ me again!" he shouted, and a low rumble shook the ground beneath them.

Emma paused as she shook her head. Right, she had almost forgotten. Gabriel was an angel, and an Archangel at that. He really was smart, but above all else powerful. Of course, she couldn't let him know that she thought this of him, she still had her pride.

"Oh fuck," she sighed, and she moved a little closer to Gabriel as the ground stopped its trembling. "Forget it."

* * *

Gabriel remembered Munich as if it were the back of his hand, and the twenty minute walk to the tall, broad, and beautifully built building could not have been more awkward.

The air was thick with an odd _something_ which lead them to believe that a strong being was close by, and sunlight peaked through white snow clouds above them as they walked closer.

"This is it," Gabriel sighed. "Justice building. The ol' JB just like I remember it."

"Impressive," Emma mumbled. She remembered little parts of Germany, but this building, it was something else.

She reached out with her mind and ventured inside. She could feel people, many people, all moving about in different directions with documents and briefcases in hand. Tall winter caps and thick wool coats felt familiar as she thought back to her first steps in the city with her sister and mother. The memory was painful, so she pushed it away.

She focused on the image of Doctor Schmidt she had seen in Jacobs pamphlet, and struggled to find his dull dark eyes through the layers and layers of people.

"I don't know if he is here," Emma muttered in concentration.

"Well I can check faster than you could," Gabriel said, and within seconds he was gone.

Emma let out an irritated huff that formed clouds in the cold morning air around her. Why was Gabriel being so… obnoxious? No. Obtuse. He was being fucking obtuse.

"Oh baby he's in there alright," came a voice from behind her. She turned and found Gabriel standing with arms crossed and sleeves rolled to his elbows as he watched her carefully.

"Well thank you," Emma blurted. "Why can't _I _be as perfect as you?"

"Hmm you've got a lot of catching up to do for sure…" Gabriel muttered under his breath.

Emma wrinkled her nose in annoyance and smoothed a large amount of hair out of her eyes as she turned from him with a grunt.

She knew she was being unreasonable with her attitude, but something was keeping her on edge and volatile. Maybe it was the thought of Gabriel hitting Jacob, maybe not, but whatever Gabriel's problem was, she was over it. He could stomp and fume all he wanted, she didn't care. All she wanted was the Horsemen, and of course, this _Cyanide Killer. _Doctor Isaac Schmidt was the next step to finding the 'child of cyanide', who was the next step to finding 'famine', who was the next step to... What the hell did Marcy say again? Well Emma wasn't quite sure anymore and she didn't care enough to try and remember, so she focused on finding the first step, the Doctor, who must be in his seventies if she was correct.

She walked closer to the building, and felt Gabriel tense as he continued close behind.

He kept his distance, an odd thing for him, but it was appreciated by Emma as she began to scale the steps up to the building.

Surprisingly enough, not many people were up and about the city. Of course the two understood that it was still far to early for any sane person to awaken to, but still the emptiness left them wondering what was going on.

"Have you noticed how little people there are?" Emma asked. Gabriel responded with a sigh. Of course he noticed.

"It must be a Horsemen side affect, or, something," she concluded, and finally she reached the final step.

A large statue of a man with a walking stick and an oversized top hat towered over them, and the German words "Gerechtigkeit: Teile und herrsche" was hammered into a metal plank in block letters overtop. Emma strained to read the words, but gave up as her head began to hurt.

"How do you know this Doctor again?" Gabriel murmured sourly.

"Oh, my mother, she had a rare form of. I think it was meningitis."

"Right right I remember," Gabriel finished, and his clipped tone made Emma roll her eyes for some reason. Again, she found herself wondering why she felt so angry in this place, but let go of the thought as she remembered seeing Jacob bloody on the floor.

"The sooner we find the Doctor the sooner we can leave. This place is doing something to me. I hate it," she said dryly. She coughed into her sleeve as she squinted her eyes at the building, and Gabriel gave her an odd look as he stepped up beside her.

"What?" she hissed.

"Why are you coughing?"

"Excuse me for not keeping quiet," she snapped, and Gabriel stepped away.

"Sorry for showing concern then," he said, the two then rolled their eyes at each other's actions. The words 'royal bitch' suddenly came to Emma's mind, and again she cursed herself for being so, for lack of a better term, damn 'mean'. No. Obtuse. _She_ was being obtuse.

Emma looked back to the statue, then down to the large wooden front doors of the Justice building. Isaac Schmidt, it was a horrifying coincidence that she knew of him. He was young in his practice when he first met Emma, and she knew that he wouldn't recognize her, but the fact still remained that he was fucking creepy.

"Gabriel, we're not here to _hit_ alright? Ask questions before you shoot a gun," she said, and again her words came out cold and flat. Gabriel shrugged and rolled his shoulders, causing a small gust of wind behind his back to loosen packed snow on the steps behind him.

Emma couldn't look away from Gabriel's (though it was technically his vessels) shoulders as she held herself back from reaching out to where his wings would be. She remembered their warm glow and their beautiful gold. She remembered their aura on her skin and their crisp evergreen scent in the air as she looked away from Gabriel's back and up to meet his eyes. He seemed to understand what she was thinking, and as his eyes always did, they spoke words of understanding to her that he never could verbally. He looked to his feet as he grinned slightly.

"Alright kid now looky here," he said. "We've both got a lot on our minds and we're tired as all hell. I mean, shit, we haven't eaten in like, two weeks? I mean we don't have to or nothin' but... Let's just find this doctor and mellow out for some lunch after."

He looked up to meet her eyes, and it was her turn to let her gaze fall to her feet. She forced back a smile as she sighed.

"It's almost five in the morning, it would have to be breakfast."

"Right," he smiled. "Breakfast."

She finally looked up and into Gabriel's bright golden eyes. She was happy to see that he redeemed his light-hearted composure, but still could not feel the inviting feelings that came along with the hurricane that was Gabriel.

Something was wrong.

"Let's go," she said, and without any further talk the two shook off the cold and pushed through the doors.

* * *

It was a busy place the Justice Building of Munich, and it seemed that the early morning cold hadn't scared away the war activists or their counterpart peace seekers.

A large room with lampposts throughout lay before Emma and Gabriel, and the frantic smell of _war_ made her cough into her sleeve again as Gabriel gave her a look. The people here were nothing like the ones in America, and the experience was nothing short of dreadful.

Gabriel again seemed familiar with his surroundings as he started into the room, and Emma quickly followed close behind.

_Join the Western Front! Belgium is Victory._

A poster glued down to a pillar to Emma's left. She impressed herself. She could read it on the first try.

_Become the dog. Britain declared war? We will not be defeated._

A rather large poster in front of her held this title. She tilted her head to the side as she focused on the small article slapped onto the area underneath it. Though it was overpowered by the much larger poster concerning war, Emma could see the same pamphlet that Jacob had given her.

She saw the picture of Doctor Schmidt, though this time it was much less faded, and knew that she would regret officially meeting him.

"Hey Em!" Gabriel whispered. Emma looked up, and saw that he was a few people away from her and was doing what she deemed to be an odd dance.

"What?" she asked as she pushed her way to him.

"Over there, look. The man of your dreams _babe._"

Emma followed his gaze, and saw Doctor Isaac Schmidt moving to walk down a set of stairs to what she believed to be a set of underground rooms. It was funny, for a moment she expected to see Jacob Colt.

"Oh! Sir. Sir!" she yelled, and the man turned. Emma ran to catch up with him, and found upon further inspection that it really was Doctor Isaac Schmidt, and he seemed confused beyond belief. Perhaps senile was a better term for his state of mind, and it was unbecoming of a respected investigator studying the crimes that were shaking a nation.

He looked around himself as she approached him, and it was then that Emma noticed how old this man was. He had a weathered, heavily wrinkled yet docile face, with liver spots and white hairs growing at odd intervals across his it. He was not the handsome man that her mother had gone to in her time of need, and Emma could tell that he would never be that person again.

"Sir! Doctor! Good to finally meet you!" she slowed her pace as she approached him and looked him dead in the eyes. "It's Alice! From your Church Hill club… _Remember_?"

The Doctor's eyes glazed over, and he seemed lost in thought as Emma locked eyes with him. She smiled faintly, and began to search his mind.

* * *

Blank.

In every meaning of the word, absolutely blank. Dead. Fucking empty.

Emma let her eyes fall from the frail old mans ones as she smoothed hair out of her face. She knew now that Isaac Schmidt was not the Cyanide Killer as part of her suspected, but perhaps something much worse. He had no consciousness, and nothing new was being produced in his mind; The white void unsettled her. The old man licked his lips and squinted his eyes further as he watched her carefully.

"Oh… Hm oh yes. Yes! I do say Ingrid, it has been long," the Doctor huffed, and he held out a hand for Emma to shake. His German came out in broken intervals from his paled lips, and Emma took a small step backward as she took his hand in hers.

"Right. _Ingrid_," she smiled awkwardly.

"How has your swimming been going Abi? I hope it hasn't been a holy travesty," he asked.

"Swimming?" Emma raised her eyebrows. "Yes, well, very good. How has your investigation been going?"

"Investigation?" he asked with guarded eyes.

"The- the murderer. Uses what officers believe to be _cyanide_ to- Well of course you know. To slowly kill his victims."

The doctor paused as his body went more or less limp. Emma could see the focus in the creases forming on his forehead, and the Doctor's eyebrows inched closer together as he pursed his lips. Emma forced herself to lean in close to the man, and ignored the halitosis coming from his mouth.

"Doctor," she whispered, she did not want to scare him. "Has there been… a child involved?"

Suddenly the doctors vacant eyes filled with something Emma could sense was surprise as he straitened his crooked back and cleared his throat.

"I don't know _what_ you are talking about Bell, Goodbye," he chirped.

He turned abruptly, and so ended the conversation between Doctor Isaac Schmidt and Emma.

She sighed as she watched him go, but closed her eyes as she focused on all things concerning the Doctor in her mind.

She had only spoken with him for a few moments, but the flimsy handshake and overpowering smell of chewing tobacco and freshly laundered clothing still hung in the air around her.

She let her muscles tense and her eyebrows knit closer and closer together till she found what she was looking for. The Doctor, she had had a good look at him, and she was sure Gabriel would come to the same conclusion she had. The Doctor had been well kept, obvious from the relatively bright beige of his coat and the black of his leather briefcase, and that fact left her wondering just what the Doctor was really up to. She had seen other officers about the room, and none had been dressed so pristinely. The Doctor, it seemed, had access to things that others did not. A clean home, well cooked meals, and obviously reliable health care judging from the swivel in his step. Emma could see that he recently had undergone a surgery, and those were messy things at best.

She breathed in deeply with her eyes still closed, and found that underneath the smell of laundered clothes and tobacco lay the smell of something she could only describe as darkness. Not something ominous or sinister, but literal. He smelled of a literal dark room. The Doctor must be working underground, but why? He hadn't smelled of sunlight like any of the other officers in the room did, but still, not a speck of dust or debris touched a spot on his body.

Someone was taking car of the brain dead old Doctor, and perhaps this _someone_ was pulling the strings where it really counted.

Emma opened her eyes and stopped concentrating on Doctor Schmidt. He was old, very old, and in a relatively good physical state. He was well looked after, and smelled of a darkness that seemed odd to her senses.

The girl turned to face Gabriel, and her long hair curled with the momentum.

"So?" she asked in English, she didn't want anyone listening in.

Gabriel tilted his head to one side. "So… So I think we've both come to the same conclusion huh."

"Well actually, I was going to ask what _you_ thought."

"Oh my… _Goodness!_ The amazing Em asking little ol' _me_ for what _I _think?"

Emma rolled her eyes as she gave Gabriel a cold stare. "Yes," she said. "I would appreciate you telling me what you came to. Please."

"Wow and you even added in a please!" he laughed, and Emma did not smile.

"Well obviously you took time to think and tinker and analyze a bunch of stuff in your head right? Well whadya got?"

Emma let her hands fall from where she had placed them on her hips. She hadn't even noticed that she had tensed the way she had, but she let out a slow breath as she gave Gabriel a look of exasperation.

"Oh fine. I think that he knows something about the Horsemen that we don't-"

"_Obviously_," Gabriel interrupted with an exaggerated eye roll. Emma pursed her lips as she closed her eyes.

"As I was _saying_… He must have connections to a demon or _something_ that's keeping him together. What I mean is he is in very, _very_ good health for a seventy something year old man in War ridden Germany of all places right?"

Gabriel shook his head as he smiled his usual all-knowing smile. For a moment, Emma was relieved. She was relieved that the old Gabriel was back and that he was smiling genuinely and back to being mysterious. But then she remembered the absence of his warmth, and calmed her racing heart.

"That's all fine and dandy kid but you've skipped over the important crap _as usual_," he said, and again he smiled a bright smile.

"Well! Go on then!" Emma practically yelled.

"Okay okay! Think about what his mind was like. Mushy right? It was all goopy and blank! It was just a blank slate."

"I know. Gabriel. I don't understand how he was even standing let alone talking. But we can worry about that after we figure out his connection to the Horsemen."

"You know you're such a broken record kid! I mean _Jesus!_ Solve this puzzle and you're one step closer! I could sense it in his body. There was nothing inside. What do you think that means?"

"You mean to say-" she trailed off as she feared for the worst. If Gabriel was correct, then this just fell to a whole new level of disturbing.

"Right," Gabriel finished for her. "He had no soul."

"That's impossible," Emma gasped.

"Really kid… _Really?_ Impossible?" Gabriel laughed as he put a hand on her shoulder. "Do you actually think that anything in this world is really _impossible?"_

"He had no _soul_ what could have done that? Why is he not dead!" she yelled, and this caused a few people to look up and in their direction.

"Come on, lets go outside," Gabriel suggested, and with her hands pressed to her temples Emma followed Gabriel to the entrance of the building.

A strong, unyielding ache was building in her head, and again she sensed a dark presence within the city.

She looked forward to Gabriel. He seemed relaxed as he walked with a swaggering step between the thick crowed of people within the lobby of the building.

Sunlight was too harsh and the air to clean to her senses as she closed her eyes and reached out a hand to Gabriel's wrist. She caught it, and Gabriel turned to face her.

"You alright?" he asked, and Emma could only nod weakly as to not aggravate her headache. Gabriel grabbed her hand and turned back around, leading her through the crowd as she closed her eyes due to the pain.

"Almost there," he said, and this time his voice trembled slightly.

Suddenly, Emma was worried. She felt different, strange, like she had been thrown through one to many banishing sigils and tossed into a meat grinder, and it seemed that Gabriel could sense her distress as well.

His pace quickened as the crowd of people faded, and Emma opened her eyes. Through the now blinding sunlight she could barely make out her surroundings, but Gabriel's halo shown like a beacon through the haze of light, and she clung to the vision with all her might. Something was horribly wrong and she could feel it in every fiber of her being.

Gabriel raised a hand, and the front doors of the Justice building burst forward and away from his grace. He ran forward and stepped outside with Emma's hand still in his, but stopped abruptly causing her to run into his back.

"Hey!" she shouted, but gasped loudly as she took in their surroundings.

There was no early morning sun.

It was night outside.

* * *

A loud bang made the two jump as they turned to find that the doors to the Justice building had slammed shut, and within its glass windows lay a dark and empty lobby.

"Fucking. Creepy," Gabriel said, and Emma couldn't agree more.

A night sky hung above them as they took a few more steps into the cold. Emma couldn't help but freeze up again as she looked upward, and Gabriel followed her gaze as he muttered to himself.

"This can't be good," he groaned.

Emma sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. "When is anything good?"

"Something powerful's made this city its playground Em. I think, uh, I think we should prepare for the worst ya know?"

"Definitely," she murmured, but nonetheless, she continued on to walk down the steps and into the darkness below.

Again Emma found herself hating the cold. Why there was so much snow she would never truly understand, but the only sound keeping her centered through the wringing of the wind was a faint skidding of bicycles wheels across snow and ice as they walked.

"Where to?" Emma murmered. The pain in her head began to lessen, and the blur of snow fell back to its normal white haze as she regained control over her senses.

"Well," Gabriel started. "We still have time for lunch. Or I mean some din din maybe. We have _time_ for anything really."

Emma rolled her eyes as she pulled a cigarette from her nearly empty carton.

"Din din? Honestly?"

"Oh come on its charming!" Gabriel argued with a smile, and Emma only sighed as she brough the cigarette to her lips.

A violent cough caused her to drop the cigarette to the ground, and Gabriel was by her side in an instant.

"Woah hey kid! Emma!" he shouted as he braced her against his side.

"I'm fine, really," she lied. She had never felt this way before, and something deep inside her twisted as she put her full weight onto Gabriel as the street before her twisted and spun.

Time sickness. It must have been time sickness. Brought on by whatever made time jump so quickly around her.

It was a term she had coined when she was eighteen and she accidentally fell backward one week through time. When she came out the other end, she nearly vomited from how much pain she was in. Whenever she moved through time or manipulated it in anyway, she felt as though she were the center of the universe in the way that every force within existence was pulling on her in different directions as her inner clock kept ticking.

Something had made time skip the way it did between the inside of the Justice building and the streets of Munich, and Emma could feel every inch of time and space being played with around her. A sting in the back of her mind told her that a powerful spell made the early morning fade to night so quickly, but as for a reason, she had no idea.

"I'm. Fine! I swear, I'm... Fine," she coughed. "I'm fine."

"Damn, you're pretty friggen wobbly for a _fine_ person!" Gabriel shouted.

"I said I was fine!" she yelled back as she pushed away hard against Gabriel. She coughed again into her sleeve as Gabriel backed away from her. She calmed herself long enough to pull her sleeve away as she felt something wet coat her tongue, and found that small specks of blood now dotted her sleeve. Gabriel seemed horrified, a look that Emma had not come accustomed to seeing.

"Jesus Em. Is that… Blood?"

She coughed again as she put a hand to her temple and made small soothing circles with her fingers.

"Hey!" Gabriel shouted. "What's wrong?"

"Oh I thought you knew fucking everything about everything!" Emma shouted. "I said I was fine!"

"Coughing up blood isn't fucking _fine!"_ he yelled back, and this time, Emma didn't try and control her anger. It rushed through her suddenly as she felt herself go weightless. She thought back to the reaper Eli and how she pressed his eyes into the back of his head. She thought of how she broke the other reapers wrist, and how the blood smelled so sweat in the air that day. She would let herself get furious, and when she was furious, people died.

"Gabriel," she said with her voice low and cold, but when she finally came to look him in the eyes, she knew that something was off.

"Emma," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the howling of the wind and snow.

Her face dropped to a look a sheer terror as she registered the shock and fear in Gabriel's eyes. He wasn't looking at her, and she slowly turned to follow his gaze up the street.

Through the darkness, a few streetlamps lit a slim path every few dozen meters that stretched back up the Justice building.

At the end of the street, she could see the faint outline of someone, a man, standing just outside of the light of the street lamps.

A feeling that suggested fear and menace followed the sight of the sillohette, and Emma's breathe caught in her throat as she slipped out of a strong rage. She shook her head to clear herself of the feeling as she turned to Gabriel.

"There," he whispered, again his voice was but a wisp of fog in the air. "Do you see him?"

Emma let a slow breath slip through her tense lips. "Yes I see him."

"We." Gabriel swallowed hard. "I think we should."

"Leave," Emma said. "Yes. Good idea. Fucking brilliant actually."

The two turned quickly and began to run in the opposite direction, but froze as a pair of bright red eyes flashed in front of them through the darkness.

Gabriel instantly pushed Emma behind him, but she was much faster, and slowed down time as she got a look at the monster who could only be one person. Everything suddenly made sense.

The switch to night.

The smell of darkness on the Doctor, and of course his blank mind and missing soul.

The Cyanide _OH_ the _fucking CYANIDE!_ It was so damn obvious!

She took a step forward as to get a better look at the towering creature with red eyes standing within the darkness of the night and snow.

She frowned as she rubbed at her temples in pain and closed her eyes.

When she opened them, she finally got a good look at who could only be known as the Cyanide Killer.


	8. Mythical Beasts and Ravenous Creatures

Woohoo next note! Here comes something that leads to a dissapointing discovery for Emma and Gabriel. And as always, thanks for reading :')

* * *

**Note #4:** Mythical Beasts and Ravenous Creatures

**Date: **N/A

**Location:** N/A

**Time:** N/A

* * *

Jacob Colt 1st Edition: Mythical Beasts and Ravenous Creatures.

Self Published- 1912. _New York_ New York.

_Section:_ **13\. B.**

_Sub Heading: _**M**

**-Minotaur-**

**Synopsis: **

A hybrid, and a terrible one at that. Originating in ancient Greek mythology and undiscovered underground cave, they are believed to be of the oldest living things on the planet (at least in the respect of general existence). When studied biblically, they are believed to have been created by a higher power along with (refer to _Section:_ **12\. A.** _Sub Heading:_** L**) the ancient Leviathan. They hunt alone. Believed to have come into existence through the first corrupted shepherds soul under a blood moon. Rumoured to be of the Horsemen Wars creation many, _many_ years ago (refer to _Section:_ **8****. B. **_Sub Heading:_ **H**).

**Physical Attributes: **

Two prominent horns atop large skull (closely resembling that of a bull), said to resemble razor blades of blacked iron. Tend to have scarred and torn flesh accompanied by fowl smell. Their bodies tend to resemble a badly designed ferrel bull mixed into a human form. They are war tanks with red eyes and boiling blood. Large, strong muscles. Veins of blood and tar and poison. I can not stress enough how dangerous these monsters are. They are lethal war machines.

**Habits:**

Solitary creatures with one thing on their minds. Destruction. Never seen in daylight, they are believed to be nocturnal. Sunlight burns their skin, much like it would a vampire (refer to _Section: _**22\. A. **_Sub Heading: _**V**), but to a far lesser extent. They do not hunger or thirst. When hunting, they hunt for sport, not for survival.

**Abilities: **

~"Physical strength of one hundred men" –(Bible Reference) Genesis. In the beginning it was believed that these monsters had a limit to how strong they could be, but resent discovery leads scholars to believe there _is_ no limit. The Destroyer Theseus (Ancient Greek. First to kill a Minotaur) claimed to have sees the beast split diamond in two and move boulders with ease.

~"Terror Presence" is an ability that has manifested itself in the Minotaur race. The term reflects the unnerving (and at times physically painful) sensation of fear that comes when in the presence of the beast. Possibly of the Horsemen War's personal doing.

~A natural affinity and understanding of all things toxic. Well known for poisoning prey as they flee, following from a distance if prey is strong or faster then the Minotaur (small chance of such a circumstance). Once the prey is weak and slow, they proceed to tear the hunted apart.

~"Golden Fleece" is created within the Minotaurs mouth as a single long sturdy thread, and can be used to trap prey. Thread is highly prized, yet has never been attained, only seen before a victims death. Fleece is corrosive, and coated in Minotaur blood. Sheep and goat are swallowed whole, and their wool absorbed. This ability, though seemingly useless, serves a grater purpose (refer to _To Affectively Execute_ under _Minotaur_).

**Fatality Rate Upon Encounter: **

92% chance of fatality. Other 8% seriously maimed or butchered beyond recognition. Encountering a Minotaur is encountering physical harm, or perhaps it would be best to wish for death in such circumstances.

**To Affectively Execute:**

~Golden dagger dipped in the blood of a (refer to _Section:_ **14**. **C. **_Sub Heading: _**N**) nephilim. Also, the blood of the a newborn lamb can be substituted in desperate times (though lamb blood will not slay the beast as nephilim blood would, only paralyses till the blood is worked through the system.

~Bodily dismemberment. Separate and bury the remains deep, they tend to sow themselves back together with _golden thread _(refer to _Abilities_ under _Minotaur)_ produced within the beasts mouth.

**Source: **

…A prophet of the lord.


	9. Deception

A/N: After this chapter, things get painful (literally) for a lot of people, and the Hell Knights make their presence known! Things just go from bad to worse, but things will work out... Maybe... Thanks for reading!

* * *

**The Timeless** and: Deception

**Date:** December 26th, 1914

**Location:** Munich, Germany

**Start Time:** 11:40 PM

* * *

She turned away from the gruesome sight. It was a half formed beast, with blood soaked and broken horns on top of its head and burn marks littering its exposed abdomen. Of course, Emma knew what it was, and she knew it was toxic.

She turned back to look.

It was a Minotaur. With talon like claws for fingers and the smell of _death_ and _war _and _pain_ all rolled into one, she couldn't help but back away.

She halted time completely, and stepped in front of Gabriel. She didn't want to look at the beast let alone step closer, but still, she moved. With hands outstretched through the darkness, she found that the only thing guiding her was the flickering light from streetlamps shifting awkwardly off stiff snow in the air. The red eyes of the Minotaur remained still.

She looked deep into its eyes, and she thought back to her time with Jacob Colt. He had written a book, she remembered, it held words he had overheard from angels concerning different monsters walking through the human world. She thought nothing of it, but admittedly was impressed. Things were catalogued, and though it took her only three minutes to scan through the three hundred and twenty eight pages of the book, she remembered all of its contents. Without Jacob, she would not know what she was up against. Without Jacob she would have never understood why this monster was in Germany. Without Jacob, she may have been dead (or of course, seriously maimed).

These Minotaurs. They were connected to something old and dark, things called Leviathans. Only craving destruction as they blackened the earth and poisoned humanity. It made perfect sense now that she thought about it.

Minotaurs would work with Famine. The Black Horse, master of plague and poison. If she didn't know better she would say that Famine himself had created the beasts. But still, she understood that these things, though few, were old in their malice.

She took another step closer as the strain of time made her rub her temples. Reaching behind her and tugging at the blade in her waistline, she pulled it free and gripped it tight.

A Minotaur. It was almost to horrifying for words, but still, it was killable; Or at least susceptible to dismemberment.

* * *

"Emma go- Hey!" Gabriel yelled. He looked around himself and then forward as he saw Emma kneeling in a dark pool in front of him. He grimaced and stuck his tongue out.

"Yucky yuck _yuck!_ Christ that's some nasty-ass business kid," he bellowed. "Is that what I think it is? That is _soooo _what I think it is isn't it. Well… How long did it take?"

Emma fell onto her hands as she let the falling snow gather in her hair. "Half an hour. I need rest."

"Good god what took you so long?"

"Oh right because I shouldn't have kept you waiting?"

"That's_ not_ what I meant," Gabriel backtracked. He stepped forward as he waved at the air in front of his nose. The chopped up thing stunk, and he could only imagine how long Emma had to deal with that _stench._

"Forget it. I'm to tired for this," Emma muttered. She raked a bloody hand through her hair, and grunted as she realized how hard it would be to get that red and black out of her blonde.

Gabriel looked past where she knelt, and again frowned deeply at the growing puddle of blood and tar in the snow-covered streets.

He looked back to Emma, and finally came to understand that she was as cold hearted as she claimed to be.

He knew with a glance at the hacked remains of the red-eyed monster that they belonged to a Minotaur. The ancient monster of a Horsemen's creation long before man or reaper or angel even existed. The sight of it left his grace stirring in a cold sweat across his vessel.

"Let's get you warm huh?" he suggested as he looked away from the blood. Emma shrugged and looked at the blade in her hand. It's sharp steel blackened by the Minotaur blood left her wiping the blade in the snow as she stood shakily.

"Somewhere I can smoke," she added.

Gabriel did not meet her eyes as he responded quickly with a "Yeah kiddo, sure."

* * *

Gabriel had still not gotten over the Minotaur and all that it implied. He knew as well as Emma did what it must have meant as they stumbled down the snow topped streets.

First of all, it meant that Famine may not be in Germany, he could be anywhere, and the thought though crushing to him must have been overwhelming to Emma. They both realized now that the mindless Minotaur was the allusive Cyanide Killer. Killing victims in the night. Taking them deep into the earth where the Minotaur felt safe from the sun, and then poisoning them slowly as it ate away at their life force.

But why? A Horsemen was behind it. Famine the Black Horse, they knew this with their deepest form of feeling. Yet still the question remained as to why a Horsemen would recruit Minotaurs to do its dirty work.

Gabriel's thoughts fell back to Doctor Schmidt. He was soulless, and he knew that an empty body was easier to manipulate with spells. Ah… Now Gabriel was seeing things Emma's way. There was more to the puzzle than met the eye, and if there was more to the puzzle than there were more players involved.

The Horsemen, Famine, must have had many connections on earth. He must have been weak and in need of assistance. Perhaps, Gabriel thought, the Minotaurs where carriers. A sort of delivery system linking back to Famine the most precious resource in existence. The essence of a human soul.

Doctor Isaac Schmidt and all his nervous energy seemed like a sign pointing toward his guilt in being the Cyanide Killer, but of course his wife who he loved dearly was among the victims. He must have sold his soul to bring the killer to justice, but nothing in the demonic realm would have given him a _fair _tradeoff_._

However, the troubling thought of a single Minotaur in Munich shook Gabriel more than he could ever let Emma know. Minotaur's didn't travel alone. They were not solitary as Emma must have believed.

"Ouch Gabriel can you turn you're damn halo light _down? _What are you thinking about? I can _feel _you concentrating," Emma grumbled suddenly with her eyes squinted.

"Sorry, sorry. Don't worry Ems we're almost there."

She fell silent, and Gabriel's aura slowed to its usual static pulse against her skin as she leaned into him for support. Gabriel blinked a few times uneasily, and with a wave of his hand cleared the snow off her feet and cleared a path through the snow in front of them. Emma nodded briefly in acknowledgment, but showed no signs of wishing to speak.

Gabriel brushed of her silence as he bit his lip and thought critically for a moment about Emma.

The girl's fatal flaw, he found, was that she trusted the power of knowledge too much. She had not experienced the real world and its horrors as she thought she had, and only through books did she interact with the places outside her current position. She thought she knew everything, and that in her relatively small amount of suffering she saw the world clearly. Of course, she was wrong.

Gabriel remembered the dark room Jacob Colt harbored below his butchery and all the disorganized stuttering mumbo-jumbo about monsters crammed into a thick book that he had written there.

Gabriel had read every book in that room at once within the second it took Jacob to banish him and Emma, and within that second he knew that one thing was horribly wrong with the book. Everything concerning Horsemen and anything relating to them was wrong.

Minotaurs were social creatures. The kind that swarm and devour in hordes, just the thought left Gabriel checking over his shoulder. Jacobs book that Emma had read was wrong on many things, but _that_ fact was perhaps the most important. Another thing horribly wrong with the Minotaur section of the book, was that it said War had created the beasts when in reality it _was _Famine. Gabriel regretted now not telling her the moment she read that damn book that it was full of false information, but he was to annoyed with her defending the boy that he withheld the information.

Maybe this would be a good lesson for her, he thought. Maybe she would learn to _experience_ instead of filling her head with those _books_ that she so enthusiastically threw herself into.

He thought about this, all of this, and much more at the exact same time as he threw caution to the wind and teleported Emma and himself to a small pub near the outskirts of the city. Emma didn't raise a finger in protest, only drunkenly shook her head as she stepped inside under Gabriel's arm.

The place stunk of alcohol and smoke but was warmer on the inside than either of them could have hoped, so Gabriel assumed that Emma would love the damn place. She wouldn't admit it, but she did. Being to tired to argue with his selection, she simply lit a cigarette as the two stumbled inside in their blood soaked clothes and exhausted expressions.

A fire blazed in one corner, providing minimal light to the silent one room pub. Few remained on the streets as more and more stars ascended in the night sky, and even fewer remained in this _hole _of a bar. Emma assumed it was due to the Cyanide Killer since he was rumored to roam the streets at night, but soon he (or maybe it was better to say 'It') would fade into distant memories.

"Do you remember Emma?" Gabriel asked suddenly as he slid into a booth. He motioned with his hands for Emma to sit opposite him, and with a hand still soothing her temple she fell with a thud down into the opposite side of the booth. Gabriel cleared his throat. "Do you remember what Marcy said I mean."

Emma paused as she brought another cigarette to her lips and sat up straight. She blew smoke through her nose and closed her eyes as she responded.

"Of course I do," she sighed.

"Then you remember all that crap with the animals?" Gabriel questioned.

"Yes I'm not stupid Gabriel. How many times do I have to say this?"

Gabriel shifted awkwardly as he looked down at his hands on the table. "And you remember how… Jacob… Was uh, well I mean we think he's represented by the bore then? I mean duh haha, of course you do."

Emma opened her eyes as she once again brought her cigarette to her lips. "Yes," she said after a beat. "I remember. What are you saying?"

Gabriel looked up with cold eyes as he spoke. "She said to bathe in the blood of the bore Emma-"  
"No," she interrupted angrily. "No! You're senile she did _not_ say that."

"Yes," Gabriel said, obviously exasperated. "She _did_."

Emma looked to her shaking hands as she bit her lip and closed her eyes hard. "Oh. Right," she sighed as she leaned back in the booth. Gabriel looked her over once, and snapped his fingers abruptly, clearing both himself and Emma of any blood on their clothes.

"I just. I don't want you to care about him," he muttered. "Because I don't want you to get hurt if you have to-"

"Kill him?" Emma shook her head. "I would never. I think." She paused and waved over a woman she assumed worked at the pub. She held up two fingers, and the woman left. She needed something to drink. Something strong, just in case the words she were about to speak were true. "I think I love him," she said finally.

Gabriel's eyes widened as he gasped out a noise somewhere between laughter and disgust.

"Love him? _Love him!_ You've known him for a solid day! What the _fuck_ are you doing tossing words like _love_ around Em?" He began to laugh as he wiped tears from his eyes. "You don't even know what love _is _you're just a kid!"

"You're right!" Emma yelled, causing embers from her cigarette to fall to the table in slow motion. "I don't know what love is because I've never met anyone like_ him_ before! But I've said it before and I'll say it again Gabriel. I. Am. No. Child!"

She slammed a fist on the table as she gritted her teeth. "I'm forty-nine years old Gabriel! I should… I should have three kids by now. I should have settled down. How could you _blame_ me for wanting that with a _normal_ _human_ boy!"

"He isn't fucking _normal_!" Gabriel laughed, and suddenly, the ground began to shake underneath him as he clenched his jaw. Though outwardly he was a joker, on the inside he was a storm.

Emma sat up even straighter as she looked down at Gabriel with a hardened expression. "Just because you're jealous-"

"Jealous?" Gabriel yelled. "What! Do you think I _want_ you? Oh god kid you can't be that conceited!"

"I'm not fucking conceited!"

"**Then prove it!**" Gabriel yelled. The room shook again as his halo boomed with an echoing sound inside Emma's head. The restraint on her anger was broken now, and her hands formed fists against the table. She wasn't just going to hit Gabriel, she was going to kill him.

Suddenly, something began to surface in her mind. Her storm cleared, and through the haze of Gabriel's halo, a clear thought formed in her head. "Oh my god." She was at a loss for words. "Gabriel."

"What Emma? Anything more to add to the list of shit you've said today? If I had a dollar for every bitchy thing you've-"

"Gabriel wait!" she yelled. "This. This isn't _us_!"

He paused as his angry expression faltered. "What the ever living _fuck_ are you talking about?"

"How are you feeling right now?" Emma asked.

"Pissed off is what I'm feeling!" he yelled.

"No not that! I mean physically! I feel like trash! What about you?"

"Well yeah I feel like _trash_ too and I have since we got here now what's your point?" he grumbled.

"Oh my god…" she trailed off again as she put down the cigarette nub and rubbed at her temples. Gabriel recognized this as her thinking-so-hard-she's-in-pain pose as he watched her.

"We're sick," she said. "We're infected."

Gabriel scoffed as he shook his head. "Infected with what?"

"The reason we're fighting. I mean more than usual. We spent three months cramped in libraries together and barely argued. What else could it be? We _are_ getting closer to Famine."

"What does that have to do with anything!" Gabriel shouted. "You're being _delusional_!"

"What else can it mean? A reaper and a fucking _Archangel_ getting _sick_ at the same time? We don't get fucking _sick _you ass! We've been getting worse and worse since we got here. Talking with Isaac was hell, and being around the Minotaur pushed me over the edge! We must be on the right track! I mean we hate each other but we _don't fight!_"

Gabriel shook his head as he glared down at Emma. "Well maybe we should fight because we're learning _so much_ about each others personalities!"

He paused and took an angry swig of his drink. Emma bit her lip, and did the same. When exactly these drinks came to their table, she couldn't remember, but it was good and burned on the way down, so she didn't mind.

"Gabriel please!" she spat. "Famine is smart. His plagues can do… Anything… Like get spiritual beings sick… Or make us think one thing when something else entirely is happening… Or lead us into… a deathtrap… Hey-" she paused as she took another sip of her drink. Something was off, and she kicked herself for not noticing it before.

"Does this taste odd to you?" she asked.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes at her, then breathed in deep with wide eyes as he looked down at his cup. They looked from their drinks, to each other, then to the side as they stared at the waitress who watched them from across the room in the dark where the firelight dare not venture.

She smiled faintly as though strings tugged at the corners of her mouth, and stepped aside.

A horrible whispering of deep voices rushed through Emma's head as she covered her ears and looked back to Gabriel. He seemed frozen, and the light of his halo burned brighter as he clenched his jaw and breathed in deep.

Emma looked back to where the waitress once stood, and blinked hard at what she saw.

A short, gaunt man with pale skin and hollow eyes that could only be described as _empty_ stood still in the dark corner.

Emma recognized him, and she held her breath. It was Doctor Isaac Schmidt.

He held a wrinkled finger to his lips, and Emma looked back to Gabriel. His eyes were glued to the old man. Suddenly Emma realized something. If Famine was as weak as he must have been to be desperate enough to resort to dealing with Minotaurs, then he must not be able to manifest his own human body. He would need a vessel. A vessel people would regard as important. A vessel like the Doctor.

"Hello Emma, and Gabriel as well," he chuckled, and it was now that Emma could smell the Horsemen. "I've been expe-

* * *

She leapt backward through time and landed back in her body as Gabriel scoffed. More than anything, her body hurt, and she plugged her nose and swung her head back as blood flowed down her chin.

"Love him? _Love him!_ You've known him for a solid day what the _fuck_ are you doing tossing words like _love_ around Em? Wow wait, are you okay? You're nose is bleeding pretty bad," he said. He shook his head as he brought his cup to his lips.

"Don't drink that!" Emma yelled as she leaned forward and hit the cup out of his hands. Blood poured from her nose and onto the table as Emma coughed and brought a sleeve up to stop the bleeding.

Gabriel stared wide eyed at her as he considered screaming in protest at her outburst, but the blood in her nose and between her lips in junction with the sweat beading on her forehead made him understand what had just happened.

"Why'd you go back in time huh?" he yelled. "What happened?"

"Him!" Emma yelled, and pointed a finger to the darkest corner of the room. The waitress still stood blocking The Doctor, and with her mind Emma threw her out of the way.

A short, thin man sat in an armchair with his fingers laced in front of his face. He seemed surprised as he watched Emma and Gabriel carefully through the darkness of his corner.

"Well this is an interesting turn of events," he said. He stood, revealing the full length of his vessel.

"Famine," Gabriel gasped. He stood with hands raised and bright light pouring from his being, but paused as Emma collapsed from her seat to the floor with blood pouring from her nose as she clutched at her head.

A horrid smell filled the air as Gabriel fell to his knees and cradled Emma's head in his hands.

"Emma! Emma wake up! Shit. **Emma!**" he yelled. As much as he screamed and shook he could not rouse her from her comatose state.

He looked back to the Horsemen that he and Emma fought so hard to find, and stood abruptly as his wings burned into the visible plain. A burning fire filled the air, and glass shattered beneath the gravity of Gabriel's intense grace.

A blinding light stopped him before he could even move. It sent him away, far away, and though he fought against the golden current, he couldn't beat the angel banishing sigil that Isaac, or… Famine, had used.

Emma was on her own. Left cold and half dead on the floor as she coughed up blood. Famines poison coursed through her, and the simple jump of a few minutes through time left her bones brittle and her soul torn.

Doctor Isaac stood and stepped closer to her. The essence of Famine was strong as he knelt down beside her.

"I'm sorry," he said "I hate to betray a brother like this, but… You of all people know what they say about desperate times."

Emma could not hear him. Though she fought to stay awake, she could not help but sleep.


End file.
